Dell inspiron 1440 laptop manual

Here you go. You can get the manuals from here.

On POST screen that says DELL
Press F2
Get into the BIOS and find the secruity tab and their willl be all the settings for Hard Drive, Users, and BIOS passwords. Just type in a pass word there.
Do not forget your pass word, unlike a windows pass word it will brick your system.

you can clear a BIOS password if you follow the instructions in the manual though