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I unfortunately lost my HP Omen X 17-ap001nb BIOS password after I set it up 1.5 year ago. I didn't need to use it until now.

The password is, I'm pretty sure, one of combinations I'm usually using as hardware passwords, with few characters changed here and there, so worst case scenario I can attempt to bruce force it. It's painful with only 3 attempts per restart and no visible input though, it's still a lot of possible combinations.

I tried to make it quicker by using a website like https://bios-pw.org and entering SN there, but to no avail. I also tried the Win + B reset to previous version, but that leaves the password as is.

I noticed that I set up a USB SpareKey though, or at least the BIOS claims that after I enter 3 wrong passwords. I tried some USBs that I found and they didn't do anything. Here's the question - how can I possibly know that the USB is supposed to be the SpareKey? Are they formatted in a special way? Or is there some kind of a SpareKey file on them? I can't find any info about this anywhere.

Update: after 2-3 hours of bruteforcing with help of Notepad++ I found the password, so problem "solved", I'll try to check the answer myself this weekend, if it lets me reconfigure a SpareKey USB.

Destroy666
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  • Not a solution (unfortunately) but you really need a password manager. Check out Bitwarden. – Gantendo Apr 20 '23 at 10:59
  • This is an irrelevant comment indeed and I've been using Bitwarden for a while, sometimes you just forget to put your password in there, especially when it's outside of the system. – Destroy666 Apr 20 '23 at 11:00
  • That is a bit overly harsh, but I know how frustrating it is to lose a password. – Gantendo Apr 20 '23 at 11:15

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I checked and you can identify SpareKey USB this way: if you choose to save the SpareKey on USB during setup in BIOS, it will place SpareKey.bin file in the root of the USB drive.

What's also worth noting is that it'll ask you to insert SpareKey USB even if that's disabled. So you can't be sure you ever configured that, if you don't note it down or remember it well.

Destroy666
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