T20 Hard Drive/Boot Problem

[marlzach]

I have a T20 whose first symptom was an "NTLDR Fatal Error 1024 reading boot.ini" upon booting. I assume the hard drive will either need to be replaced or reformatted but the first thing I tried was to reseat the hard drive, hoping against hope that somehow that would fix the problem. After rebooting, i got a lock icon and challenged for a password. Since I never having entered a password, I just hit return and now the machine won't even boot. I cant get into the BIOS either. If I remove the Hard Drive then I can get into the BIOS setup. But putting the Hard Drive back in, challenges me for an unknown password again. Any help is appreciated.