Locked out of ThinkPad

[LucyFur]

So I've had no trouble leading up to this point with my ThinkPad at all and have been using it for more than two years.  My boss bought the computer used and says he has no additional passwords than what I have already.  I had some work up on the screen and was remote connected to work.  The computer went into hibernation mode and when I tried to use it I was redirected to the Padlock icon waiting for a password.  Tried to restart, same thing.  Tried the Access IBM button, same thing.

My boss is willing to purchase a new computer but I have so many hours and hours worth of work and quite a bit of personal stuff saved on this computer.  I don't even know where to start to recover what is on the computer!  Please help!

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

can you get into the bios menu? the padlock sign should be the hdd password. Unfortunately, if it is a hdd password there is no way of recoverying the data without knowing the password.