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Probook 4440s asking 6 digit system pin

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Up until this moment there was no solution - I had done the same crap and wound up with the same lockout issue - however I solved it thanks to some serious reading and experimenting - the solution leads through booting into shellx64.efi and running a dmpstore -b command - this will list all contents stored in the nvram - go through the list and look for variables ffm-computer-name, ffm-authentication-token-FFM, system-recovery-lock and other apple related variables and delete them with the command dmpstore -d variable name (e.g. variable = ffm-computer-name). Once you have cleaned it up exit efi shell by typing reset and boot into clover and osx installer - the 6 digit pin will be gone - and once u fix it don't mess with it again - took me 3 days to figure this out :banghead:

P.S. Don't delete anything you are not sure about or you could wind up wrecking your entire UEFI system ... I haven't tried and I wouldn't - if in doubt - ask here.


Hey guys. Its actually pretty easy if anybody finds themselves in this position with Clover. I actually did this today at work too. Seems like there's a bug in Apple. Because I remember putting a 4 digit lock pin. The same as my Iphone. But I get home and find my mac doesnt boot. Luckily I tried my recovery partition and thats where I was presented with a 6 digit blank set of spaces for me to enter my code which was only 4. No way to get it to take just 4 digits and putting in more results in invalid code. So I read around a bunch of threads but mainly this one. This thread and your post specifically led me to an understanding of it all but still I couldnt figure out how you did it. Tried renaming the boot file to shellx64 but that didnt work. My system booted to windows 8.1 instead. Nor could I figure out what you did with the little bit of info in the message.
So I messed around and this time I selected my recovery partition but instead of just booting to it, I booted (with the space bar) to the single user mode option. This allows you to type "nvram -p" to see the nvram values, just like you mentioned. And with a quick search on the internet, I found that nvram -d value will delete the value you specified. So the 2 that looked like they had something to do with it were... recovery-boot-mode which was set to locked. and the other which I did first as a test was the actual lock message which in my case said "locked by don". I think that was under a "good-samaritan-message".
Anyway, again the steps where.. Select the recovery partition that clover sets up for you when you install OSX with clover. Select it but instead of pressing Enter, press the space bar which will give you a list of booting options. Boot to single user mode. Do the nvram -p to see the nvram variables. You will probably see something called recovery-boot-mode Locked. use nvram -d to delete that variable from nvram...
nvram -d recovery-boot-mode
And in my case I set the message when I originally locked it so I deleted that first. After both deletes I did a nvram -p again to see if the value was gone. Once gone I let the computer boot into recovery which happens after you exit out of single user mode. and this time no 6 digit code prompt.

You could probably do this with any of your boot partitions, I only selected the recovery one because thats the only one that my hackintosh showed a screen for. The other ones, my main and my backup partition just went to a blank screen. But when booting with space bar selection on an option, you can probably go to single user mode anyway as its not a graphical screen.
But anyways, hopes this helps some unlucky soul like I was. Now Im back and looking at pr0n again.
 
Also for anybody that is stuck in this situation, you can always use your original OSX installer clover drive. Just make sure you boot to it with your bios. I did this a few times before what I said above and logged into my mac fine. Keeping with what was learned about installing, I did unplug my network cable and made sure I wasnt internet reachable. My thumbdrive has different ROM and MLB values. Didnt want to mess up my imessage. So seems that nvram is storing its values not in memory but on the EFI partition somewhere but I could never find the file to modify it directly. But the nvram -p and -d did the trick just as well.
 
Actually the nvram is a chip which is located directly on the main board, that why it would not make a difference if you change the hard drive or sad or boot from a usb stick - to modify the nvram variables you must either go in single user mode as you said or download the file shellx64.efi and use that to access the nvram flash memory on the main board (this memory is also separate from BIOS/UEFI and CMOS it's basically a tertiary device - at least in Notebooks it's the case for obvious security reasons - on a PC the NVRAM is tied in with the CMOS.
 
Well in my case it booted up fine with my USB stick in non Uefi mode I booted to the thumb drive and saw my list of drives and partitions and booted to my normal mac drives a few times before fixing the issue. When booting from the thumb, I had totally different NVram values. So I abandoned that idea and concentrated on my hard drive boot. I even pulled out the bios battery. That didn't fix it though. I looked for a file on my EFI partition but didn't see anything with a recent date change. I think the boot thumb drive has a nvram.plist that has values stored that might be why it worked for me.
 
Anything other than UEFI with OS X is not of any interest to me at least - thats a legacy which is not meant to last, thats why I looked for and found a way to recover from the native nvram lockout issue and I am glad it worked in my favor :) Non-UEFI boot is as good as dead and a waste of time I would say but then again I guess there are still to many who either don't have UEFI or just don't feel like dealing with it but then again - we all make our own choices along the way :) All the best :)
 
Just to clear that last message up. My Thumb Drive is what I booted in Non UEFI mode when just checking that my OSX data and system were still intact although locked. My normal harddrive is set up with clover in UEFI mode. I was just saying I could boot to my thumb drive and see the OSX that I couldnt get into when I was locked out. I said that mainly for reference. I doubt barely anybody will find themselves in the situation we went thru but if they did, they can try what we did. All is not lost.
 
Up until this moment there was no solution - I had done the same crap and wound up with the same lockout issue - however I solved it thanks to some serious reading and experimenting - the solution leads through booting into shellx64.efi and running a dmpstore -b command - this will list all contents stored in the nvram - go through the list and look for variables ffm-computer-name, ffm-authentication-token-FFM, system-recovery-lock and other apple related variables and delete them with the command dmpstore -d variable name (e.g. variable = ffm-computer-name). Once you have cleaned it up exit efi shell by typing reset and boot into clover and osx installer - the 6 digit pin will be gone - and once u fix it don't mess with it again - took me 3 days to figure this out :banghead:

P.S. Don't delete anything you are not sure about or you could wind up wrecking your entire UEFI system ... I haven't tried and I wouldn't - if in doubt - ask here.

Hi hackmytosh, Please let me know how did you boot to Shell 64.efi
I tried from Clover option, but it got hanged on a black screen with the blinker.

Is there any other way from BIOS or something ?
I tried to directly select Shell 64.efi, but it goes to the clover boot screen from there also.
 
is there someone to let me know how to boot into shell64.efi mode. I have tried to boot from clover and also from efi mode in bios to select shell64.efi in present in the boot folder in the EFI drive. But both ways no success, from Clover boot screen it goes into a blank screen and from EFI drive boot, it goes to the clover boot screen.

PLEASE HELP
 
is there someone to let me know how to boot into shell64.efi mode. I have tried to boot from clover and also from efi mode in bios to select shell64.efi in present in the boot folder in the EFI drive. But both ways no success, from Clover boot screen it goes into a blank screen and from EFI drive boot, it goes to the clover boot screen.

PLEASE HELP

The shell may not work on the 4530s (6-series, old/incomplete implementation of UEFI). Note that hackmytosh12 has a 7-series laptop, and this thread is titled for a 7-series laptop.

You may have to find another way.

Can removing the CMOS battery help?
 
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