From my experience, the HDD password is stored on the hard drive and 
not in the BIOS.  I don't know of an easy way to bypass the hard 
drive password other than replace the hard drive and install an new 
OS.  I know that data recovery companies (for a high price) usually 
can get around it to get data, but costs more than a hard drive and OS.

That being said, there may be hacks out there to retrieve the 
password when the hard drive is attached to another machine, or the 
machine is booted from a CD.  However, I don't know of any.

Doug

>Hi,
>My brother passed away a week ago and left us a computer with no
>passwords. It is a Toshiba computer running xp 2005. At startup it
>boots into a screen that says 'enter your HDD password' it never gets to
>
>the windows boot screen. I'm being told that the only thing I can do is
>send it to Toshiba and they want $425 to fix it. Any ideas on what to
>do or do I have another paper weight for my desk?
>Regina Long

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