Sometimes we need to acquire the BIOS password for a particular machine, either because we wanted to break into that freaking school CD driver or because somebody is so ignorant that s/he forgot the BIOS password.

Using a program named CmosPwd, you can extract the passwords of most BIOS ever used on earth. I have tried it both at the computer in my school and also at home, and CmosPwd works wonderfully. CmosPwd is an open source program and has ready binaries for Windows, Linux, and DOS.

To use it, you need an administrator privilege (or, because there is also a Linux version, you may want to boot to a LiveCD for root access). Since it only has a command line interface, use Command Prompt or Terminal or whatever. In the Windows version, you need to install a driver (this is why you need administrator privilege) by executing command ioperm -i. Then execute cmospwd_win (for Windows) and tada! A lot of garbage will appear (for each BIOS supported), but there will be one line which corresponds to your BIOS that has a legible output. And that is the password.