my machine took a total dump & i was broke, so i bought this machine for cheap. i want to instal linux (i've had it with Windows) but it demands a password to get into bios to boot from disc. asked the kid it came from and got "i dunno, it was dads". any way around this password block?

Some BIOS allow you to press F11 or F12 during boot to access a mini Boot device menu. This means that i can tell it to boot from USB or CD without accessing the full bios. Meaning password is not needed. Have you tried removing the BIOS battery? Also there are BIOS password removal tools, but the ones i have seen need to boot from cd or run via the installed OS.