anybody know how to recover it?
I need to get the machine to boot from floppy (hdd is shafted and can't find another 2.5" one).

LEaving the cmos battery out for three days didn't do anything neither did shorting the connections and there are no jumpers to be found can somebody help?

Moving to Open.

It might be helpful to tell people what model Dell computer it is.

There is some backdoor password listed on net, you may need to try, I cant post the link (due to the rules), alternatively, dell will provide it if you get in contact with them.

Regards

|Laptops |
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The password is usually stored in an eeprom on the motherboard, you need an
eeprom programmer (electronic device) to retrieve it.
TP 380Z: eeprom 24c01
TP 390: eeprom 24c03 (be carrefull, there are two eeprom)
TP 770: eeprom 24c01
TP 760C,765D: eeprom 93c46
TP 600E, T21: 14 PIN 24RF08 (see http://www.ja.olm.net/unlock)
HP Omnibook 4150,7150: eeprom AT24c164 (0x50-0xBF area)
Dell Inspirion 7500: eeprom 24c164
Dell Latitude ?: eeprom 24c02
Compaq M700: eeprom 24C02
You can get/buy eeprom programmer in electronic shops or labs, you need
another PC to use it.
You can desolder the eeprom with hot air or you can try to "clip" the
eeprom. With the eeprom programmer

Bit of a task this is on laptops, dell want to know everything about you and your laptop when they eventually phone you back, they gave me three "engineers passwords" once for a latitude 133 none of them worked, they said I needed a new MOBO........ the laptop was turned into a a toy for the kid next door!!

it is a latitude is there not a password generator program?

There are loats of programs on the net that remove/reset bios passwords just have to search hard enough :)

do you mean stuff like killcmos?
Problem is to run them you have to get into an OS first which you can't do if you got no bios password and a shafted hdd