IBM Thinkpad 600e can't get past password prompt...

Dan, You seem to be missing the point of my request for help. 1. The laptop is worth about $50.00, I'm not spending $1200 to recover data off the HDD, and neither is my friend who it belongs to. She is upset losing the $100 it cost her two years ago. 2. The laptop doesn't boot. It asks for a password. This is in the BIOS. It can't be bypassed to boot from floppy or CD. Without this password, the system is bricked. There is no way to recover it other than changing the logic board and HDD. Since all I want is the HDD data, that is not the solution. There is a way to recover the password, but nobody will tell me where the TPM chip is located on the 600e logic board. I don't want to just take the laptop totally apart. I want to take as little apart as possible. I'm hoping someone knows the IBM master password so I can get into the bios and reset the system. Barring that, this system is junk. Thanks anyway. ----- Original Message ---- Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:06:28 -0400 From: Dan Gahlinger <dgahling at hotmail.com> take it to a data recovery place, ask for a free estimate. be prepared to pay $1200 or more. as for the CMOS, you can still wipe it. remove the HDD, then boot either floppy or CD that would bypass that password, would also confirm exactly how it is locked. you can still try to contact IBM for recovery (for a large fee I suspect) otherwise you're SOL Dan.