alright this is silly... i have a ibm 390x laptop and i got locked out of it.. its not the supervisor password or the power on password its the harddrive password. i have no idea what the password is. i dont have data on the disk that i really need i just want my laptop to work again! i tried formatting the harddrive in the laptop and my desktop with an adapter. i just want to use the harddrive again and not have to buy a new one. does anyone know how to get around this?? please help guys, thanks!

sorry i forgot to put that it wont boot up past the bios screen in the laptop and in the desktop it shows up in device manager but not in 'my computer'

Have you tried a low-level format? (this is where you restore the HDD to the factory condition by re-writing the sectors and tracks). It takes a very long time, but once done, it will be exactly as it was released from the HDD manufacturer. You are pretty much doing a factory format. The only stupid question is the one not asked.

First, go read this old post. http://computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/25446.html If none of that helps, you can download both the hardware manual AND the user's manual from ibm support. As I understand it, there are THREE passwords you can set on thinkpads Bios--easy to fix Supervisor Hard drive--impossible to hack, according to IBM.

10:00 AM and I guess he still hasn't got out of bed yet.