1) Is there any way to acquire the BIOS password if one has been set besides the obvious brute force method?
2) Even if a BIOS password has been set it should still be no problem to remove the HD and examine it separately, so is there any vital evidence that could be missed if I can't access the BIOS?
1) Is there any way to acquire the BIOS password if one has been set besides the obvious brute force method?
2) Even if a BIOS password has been set it should still be no problem to remove the HD and examine it separately, so is there any vital evidence that could be missed if I can't access the BIOS?
1) it depends on the exact BIOS, some can be recovered directly, some provide an "error code" after a number of failed attempts that can be "decrypted" to obtain access to the BIOS settings, a few have known "backdoors".
Also some laptops particularly have a separate chip storing the password.
And finally on some hardware although you cannot know what the password is (was) you can reset it.
It greatly varies.
2) it depends, as an example a number of laptops may have built-in encryption on the hard disk (Lenovo Thinkpads are reknown for this) linked to the motherboard, though not necessarily to the BIOS, but rather to another "security chip", most recent hardware as an example have a TPM chip
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that may be used to prevent access to the hard disk if not connected to the specific motherboard to which it is coupled.
Also - in theory - nothing prevents to write a modified BIOS and store in it some information.
Of course (and again it depends on specific model) a number of ways have been devised to workaround the issue, as an example by reading directly the contents of the chip and decrypting the password (similar to "chip off"), but there is not a "generic" way and some of these procedures and software are proprietary (you may find specialized services and/or Commercial software).
jaclaz