HP is a pain, and essentially requires a BIOS dump; you need to pull the flash ROM data off of the board, backup the original information and then dump it, and then reflash the unlocked BIOS to the laptop. This isn't something a lot of people can do and HP does not support this, so it does not work on all HP laptops with this problem. If that's the case, it's a motherboard replacement.
+
HP is a pain, and essentially requires a BIOS dump; you need to pull the flash ROM data off of the board, backup the original information and then dump it, and then reflash the unlocked BIOS to the laptop. This isn't something a lot of people can do and HP does not support this, so it does not work on all HP laptops with this problem. If that's the case, it's a motherboard replacement. The main thing is DO NOT KEEP ONE COPY OF THE ORIGINAL DATA; make TWO copies and modify the 2nd copy of the original dump.
You dodged a bullet by returning it. I had to replace the motherboard on an HP I got cheap with an unexpected BIOS password with a junk chassis and screen but intact motherboard because I do not have a flash reader which could do the Winbound 256MiB SPI flash the one I did it on can do.
HP is a pain, and essentially requires a BIOS dump; you need to pull the flash ROM data off of the board, backup the original information and then dump it, and then reflash the unlocked BIOS to the laptop. This isn't something a lot of people can do and HP does not support this, so it does not work on all HP laptops with this problem. If that's the case, it's a motherboard replacement.
You dodged a bullet by returning it. I had to replace the motherboard on an HP I got cheap with an unexpected BIOS password with a junk chassis and screen but intact motherboard because I do not have a flash reader which could do the Winbound 256MiB SPI flash the one I did it on can do.