Will not Accept Password and/or See DVD

I have an older Gateway 600YGR laptop, that was "put away" about a hear ago
when I purchased a new HP with Vista H-Pro. The Gateway had been working
fairly well when retired, with no major snafus. I went to take it yesterday
to prep for a friend; remove personal data, passwords, etc., but I never made
it past the sign-on screen. There is only one "user" on the machine, me, the
Administrator, bit it fails to recognize the password. It's the only one I
use. Additionally, I've tried to boot to the CD/DVD, but it bypasses that and
boots from the HD. I've also gone to my RoboForm edit on the new machine and
verified the passwords, etc. Worst yet, I only have a small set of boot
disks, as I cannot find my Gateway boot disc with the operating system. I did
try using the one that came with my Gateway Desktop, with 2004 MCE, but the
laptop wouldn't see the CD/DVD drive. HELP!!!

Any ideas?
Thank you for advice & ideas!

Best regards,
SteveG