Sounds like it is BIOS protected. If it is a suervisor password on a newer machine its not a good thing. First thing I would try is removing the CMOS battery so it can flush the settings. Leave it out for about 30 min. I had to do this for my cousin who did the samething and this erased that BIOS password. I assume this since you arent able to get into the OS? Or can you at least get to the Windows logon screen?? If so there are plenty of tools that you can use to boot from a floppy disk to retrieve passwords.