DELL hard drive password

[Lowfront]

So my girlfriends dell is falling apart.

First her screen is dead (figuring that one out)

Then she had this screaming noise going on (figuring that one out)

But while trying to figure that out I took her harddrive out and put it into an external casing to isolate it and see if that was infact the thing screaming.

Well it wasn't and now when I put it back into the machine its asking before bios even comes up for the HDD password.

This is my girlfriends computer, she didn't set any password (she wouldn't know how)

So now I'm screwed with dell absolutely not helping at all. Yes I could pay $50 for them to help me out. But I'm not budging. I stayed on the phone for 30min telling them to stop hijacking my harddrive with a ransom. Crap laptop and crap customer service.

The code I get after 3 tries is

44896128

and the laptop is a

Dell Inspiron 1501

I hope someone can help me out.

Thanks guys!!!

[hughv]

Dell makes excellent hardware, and their support is usually pretty good. You may need to be more patient.
What is the exact error message you get when this "password" request shows up?
Have you checked the boot order?
Does the HD show in the BIOS?
Have you isolated the noise?

[Lowfront]

Well the second you turn it on it just says.

HDD password

and you have three chances to get it. And then that code comes up. Which dell can take and get the password for. But I'm not paying 50bucks for it.

I can get into the bios actually and the HD shows up in there

The sound was actually the wireless network adapter.

[hughv]

You may be able to get some help from Dell by emailing that code to them.
You could also remove the CMOS battery, or look here:
http://www.rockbox.org/lock.html