[bballpaulwall]

I am working on a Dell Inspiron 1525. The owner of the laptop had a new hard drive shipped from Dell. She tried installing Vista herself but couldn't get it to boot from the CD. I took a look in the BIOS and there is a "setup password" set that is not allowing me to change the boot sequence. When I attempt to access either the boot sequence or date/time or a number of other features, it tells me that setup is locked.
I tried talking on the phone with Dell yesterday, but after passing me on to 3 different people, an operator only told me that it was no longer under warranty and couldn't help me unless I paid.
Is there something I can do to reset this password?


Thanks, Paul

[JohnWill]

Nope. Laptop passwords are deliberately difficult to bypass as a theft prevention measure.

We also don't assist in bypassing passwords, please see the TSG Rules.

[Elvandil]

Try pressing F12 at boot to see if you get a boot menu. There may never be a need to use that password.