I happened upon the guide for use of a CH341A SPI programmer (my thanks!) and decided to join so that I could learn from experts. I purchased a used Lenovo R500 laptop; the seller neglected to mention that the BIOS was locked. When I updated the machine (drive, RAM, CPU) I disconnected the CMOS battery to replace it. When reassembled the BIOS would no longer boot as it was now asking for the Admin PW, probably because date and time were blank.
I am told that there is nothing I can do to fix this but I purchased the CH341A programmer. I have a Linux machine (a Lenovo R400) and another R500 (Win7) so in theory I have another, unlocked BIOS to copy, but the details of how the Lenovo UEFI is laid out and how to accomplish a successful copy and replace are pretty murky.
If anyone here has been through this procedure please let me know. If you already have a copy of the BIOS, even better.
Thanks for your advice.
-CH-