Hi, on your old HDD you set a password ok...thats independant from your new 500 GB HDD ...
.... S12 (NVIDIA) since January 2011 .... (Also I set a hdd password and forgot it ......WD Scorpio Blue 500gb hdd. I installed it correctly .....went in the BIOS to see if it was detected .....2814M Extended RAM ... Fixed Disk 0: WD5000BEVT
in your first post you could easy go in to bios to look for new HDD...
HDD is correct recognized , as it should... by the way 500 GB is really no problem for all Ideapad..
Question: Why you dont go in bios and set correct boot sequence ? Like this one... 
1: USB CD Drive
2: USB HDD
3: HDD WD500 ....
save & exit with F10 ...
Now you should be able to setup any system... any external drive will be recognized
But a few posts later you say
I can't install a os on it because i can't get into the bios and the multi boot selection menu
that contradicts itself...
sincerely KalvinKlein
