>>3 is a dumbfuck.
If you're getting a beep and a black screen with "please enter current password", that's almost certainly the BIOS boot password, and nothing to do with what operating system you run - you won't be able to install Linux or boot to a LiveCD as the system won't allow booting from ANY device until the password is entered. You need to clear the password.
If it's a desktop, open the case and look for a CMOS clear jumper - if you don't have your motherboard manual to refer to, it's usually near the battery or the BIOS chip, and they work in different ways. Some you have to swap them from one set of pins to another (often there are three pins, and you swap the jumper from the centre and left to centre and right, or vice versa), in other cases you have to remove the jumper then power the system on to clear the CMOS. If you can't find it, or can't make it work, unplug the system, remove the battery and leave it a while (five or ten minutes), and that should clear the CMOS as well. The next time you boot the system it will then usually warn the CMOS has been cleared or corrupted, and you can hit the usual BIOS setup key (typically Del, F1, F2, F10 or F12, depending on the BIOS manufacturer) to go into the BIOS options screen and re-set, among other things, the system clock.
If it's a laptop, you're basically fucked - they have much more secure BIOS lockouts because they're more desirable theft targets, and can often only be removed by sending it to an official service centre (though if you Google a bit for the laptop model number you can sometimes turn up home solutions).