quombone

The only way to have this remedied, is to call Dell, pay the service charge and prove ownership to obtain an override password.

The password is stored in a flash EEPROM on the motherboard, you could replace both the motherboard and hard drive.

You can find more info, here:

  http://en.community.dell.com/dell-groups/new-to-community/f/3511/t/19257087.aspx

Bev.

and as a reminder: do not do this, with the power on, or plugged in.

well not all that familiar with dell products, i am only helping a friend with hers.

but you could try removing the internal bios battery for like 20 seconds, which on most computers will reset all the bios to default conditions. and of course use extreme caution when doing this, for esd and some of the battery holders a not very rugged and easily damaged.

and of course this is only for the bios portion, not for admin or other hard drive passwords. the other option is to contact the seller, for the admin bios password and or other hard drive passwords.

but to me the idea that passwords can be reset or read, by external means over the internet is particularly disturbing as far as computer security goes.