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The Hell of gates

2006-10-24 14:35:17.736054+00 by andylyke 6 comments

Brethren forgive me, for I have sinned - I use Windows XP. And now, when I boot up that computer, I get to the "To begin, click your user name" screen, but see no users. I try logging in as guest or administrator or names that had been good on that machine, and get a message that "the sytem could not log you on". It seems that the account info has disappeared. Other computers that try to open files on that machine, usually done seemlessly from inside the local network, are prompted for logon, but the subject machine won't respond to any of the user ids.

Any web info I can find demands that I log on as administrator, yet I can't. Does anybody out there have experience with this, or am I simply screwed?

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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-24 15:07:43.324771+00 by: stevesh

You should be able to log on in Safe Mode as Administrator (no password, unless you set one on install) then create/modify a user.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-24 15:13:28.708887+00 by: Dan Lyke

I talked with my dad on the phone on this, and he says he never set an admin password and it's not letting him log in with a blank password. Maybe deliberately booting in safe mode is the key?

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-24 19:10:07.48337+00 by: meuon

Safe mode is the key.. but you may end up booting Knoppix and backing up data elsewhere before an fdisk and re-install.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-24 19:24:32.310067+00 by: ebradway

I had luck recently using OPHcrack to get into a Windows machine. But you need admin access to the filesystem to get the password file off the machine.

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-25 11:35:42.301026+00 by: stevesh

I've used this with success, but not on a SP2 machine - worth a try, though.

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

#Comment Re: made: 2006-10-26 01:05:59.298296+00 by: andylyke [edit history]

I can get into the machine using knoppix,but I don't know the location and nature of the password system. Does anybody have anything on that? I tried rebuilding windows using the installation disk, and it was even kind enough to set up user accounts as part of that process. Or so it said. It still doesn't show any users nor accept the administrator login.

Incindentally, thanks to all who've offered help in this!!