There are TWO types of password protection that you can apply to a laptop. One protects the machine as a whole (with a BIOS password), while the other protects Windows.
If it's a BIOS password that you're referring to, you'll probably see a screen like this (
before) Windows starts to load):
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/enter-bios-password-at-boot.jpg
If it's Windows password that you're referring to, the screen might look more like this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KNp4xxuwznU/maxresdefault.jpg
Windows passwords are far more commonly used than BIOS ones, so I'll assume that's what you're referring to. Recovering a Windows password is a fairly easy (although rather fiddly) task where the version of Windows is XP, Vista, 7 or 8 and
some methods will work with Windows 10.
The usual method is as follows:
1. Go into the laptop's BIOS and check that it's configured to look for an operating system on a USB drive before it looks for one on its hard drive ;
2. On another machine, download and install a program for burning an ISO file to disk ;
3. Download Ophcrack (or similar) as an ISO file ;
4. 'Burn' the file to a USB pen drive ;
5. With the laptop turned off, insert the pen drive into a USB port ;
6 Turn the laptop on. It will then boot up using the operating system on the pen drive, which is actually a version of
Linux. (So you're not using Windows at all) ;
7. Ophcrack can then be run to search for the Windows password.
Instructions for Ophcrack here:
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-recover-passwords-using-ophcrack-livecd-2626168
Alternative software solutions here:
https://www.lifewire.com/free-windows-password-recovery-tools-2626179
If all that lot leaves you baffled though, you'll need to take the laptop to a repair shop. PC World will charge you £60 for the job but independent shops should be able to provide a cheaper service.