Ki77y666

edited

Edited

So I was visiting a friend for our usual vigi game sesh when I notice this pc still sitting in his closet after like 3 years so I asked him what hes doing with it and he said its a dead PC he bought from an auction for the parts that are still good but he hasn't got the time to do what he wants with it. What was wrong with it as far as he could remember was a dead psu and no gpu so if I want it I can have it. I happily took it because who doesn't love free tech. When I get it home I open it up and check everything but it was fine just needed a clean but after a good clean plugging it in and using it was not that simple.... It turned on and it booted fine well for the most part.... I got to the part where I should have seen a windows log in screen but instead I got a grey screen saying this pc is locked due to lack of being connected to a network in the last 120 days. It says to unlock it I need to contact the company it belongs to and provide the offline key (which isn't even in business any longer, I checked) or connect it to a network so it can sync with their servers (which it also can't do ) so thinking it was just a simple boot software installed on the hdd to prevent theft or to lock the pc if it wasn't updated to the servers for what ever reason I swapped out the hdd for one of my spares and went to change boot priority order in bios when I noticed my second problem... boot order was locked to only boot windows boot manager and would not allow me to change it even though bios is not locked with a supervisor password. So I'm thinking that a custom bios was flashed as well as security software installed on the hdd. Whats my best way to fix what seems like a perfectly working computer? Can I reflash bios to unlock boot order or is replacing the motherboard and or hdd the only way to fit it or am I stuck salvaging the gpu, psu, ram, case, cpu and anything else not locked with crapware? I would contact the company if I could but that is sadly not an option so I turn to you all for help. Has anyone got any suggestions?