Hi Richard,
I don't know if you can still get this, but I have a dell vostro 1088 laptop that recently went off, and on turning it on, asked for my BIOS/administrator password. I went ahead and keyed in the password, and the next page asked for the system password, which I guessed was one and the same thing and to save the correct date and time, which I put down, and also went ahead and keyed in the same password. The next stage was now telling/showing me the order in which BIOS recognises whatever I save in my computer, which was HDD, then CDs/DVDs, the a USB disk, but before I could do anything, the laptop went off. Since then, whenever I turn it on, it asks for the BIOS password and after putting that, goes off on its own.
What could be the cause of the problem and how can I solve it, since I can no longer access my data. NOTE; i RECENTLY UPGRADED MY WINDOWS 7.
THANKS!
LUCIA.