Hello!
Not sure if this is the right place, so if there's a better, please let me know, but I have a Lenovo think center that I acquired that I want to use as a simple home server, got an i5 6700 in it, may need some tweaks, but should be good. My problem is it came from a now defunct company and it wants my corporate email to download the profile. This is after I tried to factory reset it and delete all of the items. When I turn it on it asks for my corporate email, when I try to type iny Hotmail it says it's wrong and gives me the option for a security key USB. I've downloaded the win 11 installer onto a flash drive, but it jus goes straight to the corporate login request. I can get to bios, but admittedly I'm not sure what to do from there, as I'm not seein the proper options.
Any suggestions on how to flash this so I can use it for Plex, Valheim, Minecraft, and personal storage would be greatly appreciated.
Also, I have a pair of hdds imma use for the storage, am I other thinking this and just need to toss the original hdd?
Lenovo think centre pcs are great home servers, I personally run debian on mine and have zero issues with it
Two things I can think of, it's either some remnant program from the original drive in which case just toss it or re-use it elsewhere and put your HDDs in, you don't know what the state of the OG HDD is anyway and for read/write heavy programs like plex or storage it's probably at a higher chance of failure
It has some kind of BIOS lock, you said you can get into the BIOS but have you tried to change anything? It might prompt you for a password In which case you might be able to reset the BIOS or will have to contact lenovo to sort it out if possible.
The worst BIOS password bypass Ive done is to actually fry the chip storing the password, there is so many things wrong with doing this but it MAY be possible as a last resort so please exhaust all other options before attempting this
I was able to make changes without a password, switched boot order to usb and got windows 11 installed, but was still asked for corporate email to download profile, now in windows 11™
Well that's good, BIOS issues are PITA. If you're still having issues:
Sounds like some hidden windows magic, I'd format the drive from a linux live usb then install windows on the blank drive after a reboot
Maybe disconnect the power and CMOS battery for awhile too incase there's something lurking in some onboard memory somewhere.
There's always linux, which is personally what I'd recommend for a server (less overhead from graphical clients etc) if you have the patience to pick it up, but hopefully the above solves your problem