Laptop Assistance needed if possible

[Teskeria]

This is Teskeria's daughter posting with her permission.

I would appreciate any assistance that can be given.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 and it crashed recently. My ex decided to help me with the problem while I was fixing my desktop and unaware of what he was doing. He added a password to my bios and somehow turned off my disk drive.

My reboot disk Dell gave was somehow scratched up and so did a flawed install before his help. I have tried to find a way to wipe the bad install so I can install Ubuntu instead. I really need to access the SD Card Reader on the laptop.

So far I managed to get in and remove the battery inside as I was told by others, but that did nothing to reset the Bios as I was told it would.

Really my main issue is the fact I can't wipe the corrupted install or get it to read any CD I put in. If I can't get it working in any way this laptop will be trashed as it is of no use otherwise. So any suggestions will be helpful as I would rather not be forced to go without the SD card reader as I can't afford to purchase even a cheap one.

[Chromatix]

Okay, I assume you have found the coin-cell battery which is used to maintain the BIOS settings - as opposed to the main battery which is much larger.

The BIOS memory chip is extremely efficient and there is a capacitor in the power circuit, so simply removing the battery for a short time is insufficient to clear it. You will need to short the terminals of the battery holder together in order to discharge the capacitor. Make absolutely sure that all sources of power (both batteries, and the power supply) are removed first. Desktop motherboards provide a convenient jumper to do this, but you can use a screwdriver with a bare metal blade.