Password help

I own a IT business and see people that come in all the time that forgot their passwords, (windows) and that is a simple fix. I have yet to reduce myself to the hacking world, but I have a laptop from a customer that owns a pawn shop. The machine worked fine until last week when someone came in and was "looking" at the machine and low and behold there is now an admin password and a hdd password. I easily got past the bios pw by removing the cmos battery.Toshiba tech support has no resources to offer and the customer, well he owns a pawn shop and the second I mentioned a new hdd he almost hung up on me.
I understand the rules and regulations about offering help, but there has to be some kind of help for those of us that don't know anything about hacking a hdd password. This instance is clearly a hostile action from the previous owner, but either pay your bills or the pawn shop will sell your belongings. I'm sure that is stated in the paperwork the previous owner signed. I forgot to mention they pealed off the os key sticker when they locked this machine...
I know this can be done from previous customer with a Dell. I am a certified dell tech so i simply called them and they walked me through the reset process. I am not however a tech of any kind with Toshiba, personal preference. So that being said any help would be greatly appreciated. Please contact me via email or PM and I can explain in further detail as well as my business information. This is a legitimate request.
Thanks.