Hello, I have had my laptop for a couple of years. I have been using my fingerprint reader to log in to my laptop since I got it, so since then I forgot the password to my computer. Now all of a sudden my fingerprint reader stopped working, it doesn’t recognize any swipe that I make.

I have tried entering safe mode on the computer, but it is asking me to swipe my fingerprint or enter my password. Obviously I can’t do either, any ideas or suggestions to skip this?

Technorati Tags: fingerprint reader, laptop, safe mode, swipe

Some laptops, for instance from Dell, and some PDAs, and some flash drives (such as SanDisk Profile) have a built in fingerprint recognition for security. Can this be hacked? Could a motivated civilian computer geek do it? or would it take heavy-duty resources like FBI or NSA to do so? I keep mildly sensitive files on my flash drive and want to keep these safe if I lose the flash drive. I am computer-challenged and know zilch about security. Any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: dell, fbi, fingerprint recognition, flash drive, laptops, nsa, pdas, sandisk, sensitive files, zilch