Unknown Hard disk password, prompt

In addition to the good info above, the hard drive password is an ATA standard feature of hard drives and the PW is NOT resettable, not by any operation in the BIOS anyway. It's stored on the HD itself.  Unless you have the PW, the HD is usable only as a paperweight. I doubt even Acer can do anything about it, perhaps the HD  maker can.

Unless you remember typing anything while in BIOS setup, you could try a blank password, a space only or just about anything that you may have hit accidentally. If you're not lucky, you should remove the HD from the laptop and try it in a working system (as secondary -"slave"- drive) and see if you can access it. If you can't, it is indeed a proper HD password set - which is bad...; if you can access it, its a weirdness with the Acer BIOS and you should try to fins a way to reset CMOS, possibly even reflash the BIOS. This is an operation I almost never recommend, but if there is a problem such as this, it might be a good idea. It's not totally trivial, though; BIOS version and procedure must match to the letter or the machine may be rendered unusable.

/RID

I was considering purchasing a new hard drive anyway, so would it work if I were to purchase a new hard drive, and do the installation again.

Yes, probably... Personally I'd perhaps browse through the BIOS setup before installing a new HD and verify that a "hard drive password" is NOT set, perhaps remove all password requests until everything is up and running. Setting passwords on modern machines is, as nobus' posting suggests, rather dangerous (or at least expensive...).

/RID

would you guys know the default password on a hdd, that would have been supplied by hitachi, as acer are not being much help

i was never able to get a default password.

I have tried reflashing the BIOS, did not work, I guess I will have to buy a new HDD, but before I place the order I wanted to know, whether the new HDD would work, as the current HDD has a password, and this will not affect the functioning of the new HDD, cos If i were to pay ACER the £50, I would be able to buy a new HDD for less than that.

i am guessing it will not work; that is how and why the safety system is supposed to work - against theft

Ok, this is the information displayed in the BIOS

Setup Password [None]
Power On Password [None
Hard Disk Password [Present]

As I do not have the password for the hard disk it is showing as present and therefore I am unable to change the status of it, so I wanted to know if I were to replace the hard disk, the Hard Disk Password would be set as None, as there is no Password set on a new Hard drive, as the BIOS would detect the new hard drive on startup, I hope logically it would not ask me for a password as there is none set.

imho, it will ask just the same, you can test it with an old one, if available

I *think* it will not ask for a PW, if you connect a new HD. You could try by removing the old HD and see what BIOS setup shows; you should be able to access BIOS setup without a HD in the machine.

If the HD wants a PW it reports that to the BIOS, so my GUESS is that the BIOS will say [None] until a PW is actually set, as new HDs don't have PW set.

There is a very long but informative thread here at EE about hard drive passwords. I haven't got the link, but searching the site should bring it up, I think. It's pretty interesting./RID

ok thanks guys, you have been a lot of help. well I have placed the order, should be receiving the Hard drive in the next few days, so will find out and let you guys know.

ok guys help me out, i think i have screwed my laptop up. i received my hard drive yesterday, in my eagerness to resolve this issue, I removed the HDD, and then in BIOS ensured that all password values were set at none, shut down the laptop, and put the new HDD in, but in my haste I forgot to remove the battery, so the HDD was plugged in with the battery still in, now when I switch the laptop on, I dont get the start up screen, all I get is an long ear piercing beep from the laptop, I dont even get the Acer startup screen then the option of setup etc. it just a blank black screen showing my reflection. Please dont tell me that I have screwed up my laptop, that would entail me throwing away a lot of my hard earned money. If it is BIOS issue I have the latest BIOS file from acer for the laptop, the question is how do I load the BIOS back. Im a novice in this so I have to ask stupid questions.

did you connect the disk in right direction? on some lappoes, you can install the disk upside down  . .. .

yes the disk is in the right way, as it was with the old hdd, both are hitachi travelstars.

xan you test with the old drive?

Hey guys, I got it working, I get the BIOS screen, I removed the RAM and HDD, tried it one by one, it booted up in BIOS all the times, I dont know why, it never booted up before, but what the hell, its working now. The only little problem is that now when I try to do a fresh install of Win XP tablet edition, it does not get to the windows installation screen, I cant do it from the HDD, as it is a brand new blank HDD, so nothing on there. The laptop came with an external cd- drive, so when I try installing it does not go through, It keeps on asking me to "Insert system Diskette then press enter to reboot".

I have tried going into the BIOS, changing the BOOT order, so it's cd drive first, then HDD, then floppy drive. I have tried the multi boot option by pressing F12, and it goes to the same screen.

P.S. I called up acer regarding the problem with no display on the laptop, they quoted me £200+ saying that the Motherboard had gone. Boy talk about ripping people off. Im in IT support as well, and even we dont rip customers off like that.

im trying to install windows 2000 it accepted the disk, going through the install now, but midway through i got the blue screen of death

maybe this helps too :  
  http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci955465,00.html

trying it again, touch wood it goes through. will let you know how it goes

tried it again it copies the files, then when it comes to setting up Windows, I get the blue screen of death.
will try it again at home with linux or another OS. will let you know how it goes

Are you trying to install windows on the new hard drive while it is in another machine? That migh not be a good idea. Some confusion will certainly ensue when it is put back in the laptop again.
/RID