Have you ever recovered a bricked laptop by flashing the BIOS? Let me know in the comments below.

We all have that one drawer in the office. You know the one. It’s full of orphaned laptops left behind by former employees who thought it was hilarious to set an EFI password before they quit.

Enter the EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) password. Unlike a Windows or macOS login, this password activates before the operating system loads. Without it, your computer is a very expensive paperweight. You can’t boot from a USB, you can’t change the boot order, and you certainly can’t reinstall the OS.