How to Format an Old Work Laptop Without Admin Access?

Be cautious with other suggestions. It’d be better to reach out to your former company and ask them what to do with the device. They should be able to help you with removing it from their systems.

Do you really not have access to a USB drive? You could ask someone to help you load a DOS format tool onto it. Then you could set it to boot from the USB in BIOS and run a command to format the drive. Just a thought! But be careful, okay?

What do you see when you boot up before the login screen? Maybe there's something helpful there that can guide you on what to do next.

If you have access to another laptop, you could install a Linux distro on that one first and then swap the drives if they’re compatible. Just make sure to pick a distro that works with Secure Boot since it’s probably enabled on a locked-down device. But if the drive is soldered, you're out of luck for that.

It sounds like this laptop might be managed with Mobile Device Management (MDM). You should check if that's the case; it can restrict what you can do with the laptop. If that's true, you might need to contact your previous employer for help.

If this laptop was given to you in good faith, why not just reach out to your IT department? They might be able to help lift any restrictions on the BIOS for you.

Does your laptop have a disc drive? If it does, grab a copy of Linux Mint XFCE and boot it from the disc. You can find instructions online on how to access the BIOS to set it to boot from the disc. Once you boot into the installer, you can choose to erase everything and install the new operating system.