Toshiba mk4026gax password

I know this sounds insane but here's the story.

Bought a 40 gig hd on ebay. Supposed to be brand new.
I get it in the mail a few days later, put it in the laptop (dell
cpir400gt)
and I am immediately broght to a screen with "www.dell.com" at the top
that tells me it -the hard drive- is password protected.

I removed the drive from one of those lovely little
cellophane/alluminum foil
bags. I would like to say it IS new except I didn't password protect
it.

A friend of mine suggested it may be an oem drive that has a password
installed by default by ?Dell?

Anyone ever hear of such a problem?
Anyone have a guess as to what the password might be?

To make this story even more of a nightmare, the ebay seller
would appear from the email discussions I have had NOT to be
much of an english speaker. Though they are looking into helping
me with this problem, I don't see much of a fix other than shipping it
back to them unless someone has heard this kind of story before
and knows the solution.

My first thought was that it was a unit that was spot tested at the
factory.
But somehow this just seems somewhat unlikely.

I have considered the possibility that my laptop automatically
configured a password, but this seems insane.
I see nothing in the documentation to suggest this.

It seems most likely that it is NOT brand new (cute little
cellophane/alluminum foil bag or not. How hard those to get?)