so, i got a laptop given to me from a family member. i go to fire it up, and it is password protected, call teh paerson who gave it to me and after a good hr on the phone we cant seem to unlock it.

i planed to format it any how, so........... i wonder, can i remove the laptops ahrd rive, use my cables an

d such to convert the laptop hard drive into a exteranl drive, can i format teh laptops hard drive, then put it backinto the laptop and have it work hunky dory?

step one, open laptop remove hard drive

step two, hook up laptop hard drive as extrnal hard drlive on my desktop

step three, format hard drive from laptop

step four, reinstall freshly formated laptop hard drive

step five, trun on laptop and install operating system and be on my happy way

this plan set for falure? if so show me the right path olsmart ones!

rad thnks, ill try just booting from a disk and hope for the ebst! thanks

Most modern laptops, if it's a bios password, can't be cleared by any means because they're coded into an EEPROM. You'd need to send it to the manufacturer so they can use their special dock to reset it.

The only recent exception is some Toshiba and Acer models that were recalled because they were setting their own BIOS passwords and had to be replaced by the manufacturer because users couldn't do shit about it.