EFI password reset, blinking folder? Death.

I'll get right to the point here. I attempted an upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion. After the reboot, a blinking folder of ? death occured. Tried every keystroke I could find on the Internet to revive it, to no avail. I've tried to boot from my disk, and also from USB. Using multiple keys, multiple times. Option key is the only key that gets a rise outta my Mac. It displays the EFI password prompt. A password that was set by the previous owner I assume. I've attempted the ram removal trick which only makes a beeping sound. I've tried it with 1 stick in different slots and switching them around. Ugh.. Any other insight would be mucho appreciated. Oh I also bought a new HDD hoping I could just fresh install. Same problems. Help me? :(