Cannot get my power on password to work

[AJDLS]

Please I am desperate. This is a Windows computer, but something seems to have hijacked it and now HP are saying it is a Chromebook??? I CANNOT get anything to work as it is saying my Power On password is wrong...and I KNOW it isnt

[WAWood]

@AJDLS 

You need to explain what you mean by claiming that someone has hijacked it -- that can mean a lot of different things.

[AJDLS]

I don't know what technically happened, so I feel "hijacked"...this is a beautiful 17" laptop...Windows 10 OS.  But when I could not get my power on password (it is correct) to work, I entered my details in our HP account...and it came up as a Chromebook?!?!  I have never HAD  a Chromebook and would never have purchased one.  I had completely set up Windows 10 and installed software as I always do...over 25 years of owning laptops 😞   I have a techie friend who could not get the laptop to boot either and said "I've never seen this before "! Thank you for help. I am not technically proficient enough to attempt the cmos battery removal:(

[AJDLS]

Further attempts at solutions. Tried to use my system disks to reinstall, but there is no way I can find to run them from the CD drive.i can HEAR the drive being accessed but eventually it comes back to asking for the power on password.  I have now attempted to try to open the case to clear the CMOS by removing the internal battery. Despite taking out all screws including a couple of hard to find ones we can't get the case open cleanly and are afraid of damaging something. Any support would be appreciated.

[WAWood]

@AJDLS 

Thanks for the detailed explanation -- I can certainly see now why you feel your laptop has been "hijacked"!

Clearing the CMOS does no good on a laptop -- so that is basically a waste of time.

If you can get a 32GB USB stick, then I would see if the HP Cloud Recovery option mentioned below will work for you.  It will reformat and erase the ENTIRE drive, removing everything that is there currently.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Win10 and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[AJDLS]

Thank you so much. I don't know if that would work differently than the recovery disks I have that came with the computer? When I put them in the drive and turn the computer on it tries to read the CD drive but then reverts to asking for the power on password:(