Ok, downloaded the anyboot disk image and created a USB stick. On boot up it went into debug (I can’t remember the exact error code there were many lines). Removed USB stick and rebooted. Now I can’t type in my BIOS password because special characters aren’t recognized (I get a beep when using shift-4 for example instead of a $. I am now locked out of my laptop. Laptop is a Panasonic CF-R4 and has a Japanese keyboard. The laptop is now completely useless just because I can’t type in a special character to get past the BIOS password. I need some help here.
I’m not sure if this is related to Haiku – since a USB keyboard is typically input-only. I don’t think Haiku could’ve (or even would have) changed anything in the keyboard’s “firmware”.
Back in the day, you could pull the battery off of your motherboard for X hours if it ever got stuck like this. I’m not sure if that’s still the case in this day and age.
I tried to look up your problem on Google but I didn’t have much luck. I came across something vaguely similar that may apply. Check it out: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/SL-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/Undocumented-problem-with-BIOS-password/td-p/101931
Good luck!
This is a bug in your laptop BIOS. It is unrelated to Haiku. You need to call Panasonic support center. Alternatively you can to try reset CMOS at your own risk.
Should be enough to disconnect current and battery for a couple of seconds. Keyboard controllers can in fact be put into strange states via USB when things go wrong during initialization.
Full reset by eliminating all current supply does usually solve the issue. Had something like that on a HP laptop. Those guys also thought they needed to put some strangeness into their controllers.
Thanks everybody. This seemed to help. Now to give it another try. 