resetting a power-on password

[Holly]

A friend of mine's soon to be ex-husband put a poweron
password on her Dell laptop. She came to me for help
but, I don't know how to fix it. I can get into the BIOS
but I didn't find anything there. Someone suggested I
try booting from a floppy to get access to my hard drive
but it doesn't have a floppy drive. I have reset jumpers
on desktop units to fix this problem in the past but I
have never opened up a laptop and am afraid to do so.
Would removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes fix
this anyway? I am not a computer expert by anymeans.
The PC has Windows XP Professional. I hit Ctrl+Alt+del
2x to get to the admisistrator password hoping there
wasn't one, but there is. I heard there are free
utilities that can peel back the asterisks of passwords
but how can you run it if you cannot get into the
system? Someone please help!

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Holly;
If you are referring to the BIOS password, contact Dell.
You will need to prove ownership before they will assist you.

If you are referring to the Windows password:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/lostpass.htm