Our college issues us with a laptop if we wish. I use my own. An American was here, he had a falling out with the college management. His contract was not renewed. He left the college issue laptop in our office.

When I switched it on, it requires a password for the hard drive. He is not responding to requests for the password.

Where is this password, in the BIOS or in the hard drive?

Is there an override?

If I take the hd out and use it in my little usb external drive, will it work?

If the password is in the BIOS, if we install another hd, will the password still be required?

"An American was here", not sure what that has to do with anything....

When is the password prompt coming up, during BIOS, Grub, etc...?

Perhaps I should have said, "An American teacher was working here." Just info as to the situation. He was angry with the college management.

It is a Windoze laptop, no Grub. It does not begin to boot, asks for the password.

a Microsoft forum would be a better place

for a linux OS

boot into single user mode and reset it

for WHAT win7/8/10 what ?

it depends on how this password is set up ?
is it a fully encrypted drive ?
or something else ?

If it's a bios password just remove the main battery, power supply, and the "coin" battery on the motherboard for 10 minutes, reconnect everything and you'll have a reset bios.

Thanks, I'll try removing all the batteries, see if that works!

I'm not going to a Micrsoft forum! I'm allergic to Windoze! I find the people here always have good advice for numbskulls like me!

If you're getting the password request before anything starts it sounds like a BIOS password as Mill J suggests above.

Check out the various ways to reset the BIOS password here, you haven't specified the make and model of the laptop so we can't provide any specific information on how to do that.

Play Bonny!

Or it might be a self encrypting drive (SED) - and if the authorization key has been enabled, I'm guessing you are out of luck. Can't even pull the disk out and take it to a proper (i.e. Linux) system.

There may be two issues.

One is security on the hard drive. Many modern laptops are almost impossible to bypass the hardware lock.

Two is a possible software that protects. Some companies use a program that may interact with AD in some cases or standalone to prevent data theft. Some of those can be removed along with all the data. If the activation key is in bios then you can usually get a generic windows 10 and it will load and activate.

Thanks, I'll try removing all the batteries, see if that works!

I'm not going to a Microsoft forum! I'm allergic to Windoze! I find the people here always have good advice for numbskulls like me!

Later on: I took the hd out of this Dell, put in my external drive, tried to look at it. It cannot be read by gparted. So the drive itself is protected.

I looked for the bios battery, but it was not easily found, not visible from the bottom where the hd, RAM and battery are located, so I gave up. I would have had to take the whole thing apart. They will have to do that to reset the bios.

BUT: although I can't reset the boot sequence, I disconnect the hd then inserted my Ubuntu boot stick, and of course, Linux can boot it.

I put my hd in the Dell, could not boot, but I could at least get into the bios. But the bios is locked, I need the password to change security settings.

This guy was very angry with the college. I suppose this was his revenge.

I wanted to see if I could get it working. Now it is my boss's problem.

Ok, so you don't want to supply the model of the laptop as asked for in Post #7, I get "Dell" as the manufacturer so the only solution I can come up with to reset the BIOS password is for a pre 2004 Dell model.
You haven't supplied any info to help identify the model so check out the "How to use the jumper to reset your Dell laptop" which also has links to the service manuals to help locate the jumpers.

The other advice given for later laptops is to contact Dell support.

Play Bonny!

Yeah ya got a watch out for them Americans. and why are you not returning the laptop to its rightful owner instead of trying to hack into it?
you won't know until you try it said the lady down the street.

Sorry, I didn't pay attention to the model. Later on, when I get to the office, I will look, it's a small 13" Dell, my colleague says it is a cheaper version of the XPS or Vostro, about 2 years old.

Well, it is a Dell Latitude E5250

Following the instructions on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBB0Ef-ytJw

for this laptop, I removed the cmos battery.

I was expecting the bios to be unlocked after that. It was not, is not.