When I turn on my IBM Thinkpad laptop - it reacheds a stage where a padlock appears in the top left hand corner. This I think is intimating that the laptop may be locked ?

The laptop was working fine - and then this appeared out of nowhere - would be delighted if anyone can help

kwarteng hayford yaw, January 2011

That lock is set in the BIOS settings. I can think of no way that it can happen "accidentally".

The bad news is that if it is a ThinkPad with a security chip that password is designed to turn stolen laptops into scrap.

So you need to find whoever set the password and get it from him/her.

T, January 2011