Hi, I recently purchased an Acer TravelMate C

[Interlude]

Hi,

I recently purchased an Acer TravelMate C104 second hand. It came with two Smart Card, and I'm pretty sure they've been used in the past. Would this cause me any trouble when I go to use them for my purposes? ie, can I essentially treat them as blank cards when Platinum Secure asks me for cards to use as emergency and primary cards?

Cheers

[Gypsy]

Welcome to the forum. If the cards have been used before you will not be able to use them unless you have the password. I think you'll probably have to purchase new cards.
Sorry.

Gypsy

[Interlude]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Do you know of any way around this problem, where I can "format" the card, and return it to an unused state? Also, can anyone else verify that I can't just reuse the card as is?

Cheers

[Gypsy]

I don't think there is a way around it, but maybe someone else has a solution. Here's an FAQ from Acer about it that may be of some use to you:

http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/smartcard.htm

The cards themselves are not too expensive. I had to buy them when I had to run a system restore and forgot my password.

Gypsy

[Interlude]

Ok, so no one else seems to have any suggestions. Also, I seem to have accidentally triggered the pre-bios authentication by resetting the bios, and now I have to use the old smart card to boot. Thankfully, it doesn't require a password.

Actually, now I'm afraid to install the PlatinumSecure software, because I don't know what it will do, with the pre-boot authentication half installed. Don't suppose you have any ideas?

I looked around a bit, and I was unable to find any Acer Travelmate smartcards for sale. Can you direct me to somewhere where they offer them for sale?

[Gypsy]

Sorry that I'm the only one to have replied about this, but maybe no one else knows either.

If you install the Platinum Secure software it will be useless if you don't have the passwords for the cards, so there's probably no point in doing it.

As far as purchasing new cards, I don't know where you're writing from so I can't help you there. I would think that your best bet is to call Acer from where you are and ask them.

Is there any way you can contact the person you bought your C104 from to obtain the password on the old card?