Reformatting My laptop crashed and the only solution I have left is to reformat it. When I get to the reformat screen however it asks for a password, and I never remember setting one nor what it is if there is one. It gives a hint, but the it only says birth. How do I reformat?

No reformatting will help . Unplug LED screen vga from board and see if laptop will work on external screen . Could be magnet switch .

Try reformatting the hard drive. If you accidentally corrupted it, it might display a password. Transfer all the files from your hard drive to your computer and then reformat it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/248980/how_to_format_your_hard_drive_in_windows.html

Try this for reformatting on a Windows machine.

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1075

Try this one for OS X

There's a way to reset the password and it doesn't involve reformatting and reinstalling Windows. The solution is called Windows Password Recovery Tool. It can reset almost all Windows passwords in seconds. If you want to know how to use it, please visit it http://www.windowspasswordsrecovery.com

No, if it were locked you would come to the prompt screen for the password. Sounds like the operating system has crashed or became corrupted. Try reformatting and reinstalling Windows 98, or upgrade it it will handle Windows XP

Hello,

This is basically the indication that the HDD went bad.Most of the modern HDDs are SMART enabled and show symptoms like this when there is some fault in circuitery of the drive.The reformatting will not do in this case and a replacement of the drive is needed.

Thanks

I have a e250 also and it white screened. I could'nt shut it off. I just left it on overnight and 1/2 of the next day until the battery went dead. Then pluged it in. It Worked!!!!

It depends what kind of password is that, if you are dealing with a password witch is being asked when it's turned on and called power on password or what (last time I saw something like that 2-3 mounths ago) than you have almost 0 chance to get in to your computer without it. In that case I strongly suggest you to check your papers, no matter if there's no more warrenty left, call the hp support line and as far as I know they have their own passwords and they'll tell you if you can prove that you are the rightful owner of the laptop not a thief.

If it's just a windows password, than it's a piece of cake, just go google and type ophcrack, download the live cd of theirs, and burn it to disc on another machine, use that cd to start your laptop and make sure that it boot's from it, it will automaticly try to crack the password and will show you if found one, (most passwords are stored in 2 pices, you'll see, on the screen, you'll need to use both halves of the password case sensitively as shown.)

Best luck

go to www.biosremoval.com they can help, works for me everytime!

First: the password was rejected, probably cause you were with the (Num Lock) locked, or (Caps Lock).
When you try to format , if you are not using an operating system that have drivers for SATA disk , the install will tell you that there is not a disk in the system. You can use Vista to format and reinstall the system, or a Windows XP with SATA drivers compiled before, (inside the CD).

theres a cd for that, try ask it for your friend if he has it...