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Fujitsu Futro S900: Firmware 

BIOS

Hit F2 to get into the BIOS. I found the DEL key also worked. Unfortunately in each case I was greeted by an "enter password" screen and I did not know the password. Briefly removing the onboard battery did not help here.

As I expected, an exchange of emails with Fujitsu support ended up with an unhelpful:

I believe the only way for this product would be a chargeable repair to replace the mainboard.

This is a little frustrating as I imagined it was just a matter of toggling one bit or erasing some bytes somewhere in some flash memory. When I eventually looked at this again, as expected, it turned out to be a trivial exercise. Having booted Tiny Core I overwrote /dev/nvram (the 'CMOS') with some rubbish. When I next rebooted, the BIOS, on finding a corrupt CMOS checksum, silently reinitialised the NVRAM with some default data and the password prompt went away.

Subsequently I heard from Otmar who pointed me at the right on-board jumper to use. (See below).

When Linux started up one line of the 'dmesg' file was:

DMI: FUJITSU FUTRO S900/D3003-A1, BIOS V4.6.4.1 R1.14.0 for D3003-A1x 01/27/2012

I subsequently updated the BIOS to R1.18.0 but the update obviously didn't change the password problem that was still in place at the time.

On power-up/reset...

  • The S900 attempts to PXE boot - and will if you provide a suitable server.
  • It will also boot from a flash drive plugged into one of the USB ports.

The F12 key will bring up a boot menu. (When the supervisor password was set it also brought up a prompt for a password, but that could be ignored by just hitting enter.) You then move on to a screen titled: Please select boot device:. My S900 had a USB pen drive inserted, and a Seagate 60GB drive (ST96812AS) connected to the onboard SATA port. With this combination the menu of options is:

  • P0: ST96812AS
  • Generic Flash Disk 8.0
  • Realtek PXE B01 D00
  • UEFI: FAT File System
  • Enter Setup

You can select any of the items but, what ever you select this time, it does not change the default behaviour of the BIOS.

Selecting Enter Setup took me into the BIOS setup screens. The heading across the top was:

Aptio Setup Utility - Copyright (C) 2011 American Megatrends, Inc.

You are now into the BIOS but, if an unknown supervisor password is set, only as a user, not an administrator. (The Main screen will show the Access Level as User.) For example hitting F3 for 'loading the Optimised Defaults' results in a pop-up screen saying Administrator rights required.

As a user you can view the current settings but there is very little that you can actually select or change. For example, when I was in the Boot screen I couldn't change anything other than the Bootup Numlock State, Quiet Boot and something to do with Option ROM Messages.

Password Reset

This approach is equally valid on the S550 and the S700.
Fujitsu S900 password reset

In October 2021 I heard from Otmar who pointed out the official way to reset the BIOS password.

There is a 5-pin strip line header on the board. On the S900 this is located just behind the power switch.

S900 password clear Power off the S900 and then move the jumper to the position shown. Power up the S900. The password (and the CMOS?) should be cleared. Power off the S900 and move the jumper back to the normal position.

In December 2023 I heard from Jeroen who pointed out that with his S920, when booting with the jumper in the 'clear' position, you must press F2 on booting and go into the BIOS and explicitly change or delete the password. If you do nothing you'll find that, having moved the jumper back to 'Normal', the previous password will still be in place.

He wondered if this was the case with the S900. With my S900 it isn't. Moving the jumper is sufficient and the BIOS password is cleared. Note: There is always a possibility that a subsequent S900 BIOS behaves in the same way as Jeroen's S920 BIOS.

Standard Firmware

As noted on the hardware page my S900 came with no internal flash memory and hence no operating system. The datasheet for the S900 shows that it should come with either eLux or Windows Embedded Standard. (eLux support now migrated to unicon-software)

My unit does have a label for Windows "Embedded Standard 7 (WS7E)"

 


Any comments? email me. Added July 2013    Last update December 2023