[icer]

I have had this computer for 5 years and have never used a password. at logon I leave it blank and just press ok.
when i came off standby today there was a message from firefox to install a dictionary which i did.
had to restart computer and now it wont let me go passed the password stage. have looked at safe mode but it just recycles in same pattern.
as far as i am aware i have never used a password.

what do i do now.

in safe mode it did mention network, which i did not try. i have other computers attached via a bt home hub and i suppose it is a form of network but only for the internet.

I am not very computer savy and if it is possible to mess it up further i would be able to.

I do not have a password disk as i dont have a password.

help please!!

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If it makes any difference I have installed service pack 3 when it came out

[icer]

If it makes any difference I have installed service pack 3 when it came out

[icer]

It ia a Dell Dimension 8200
Looking through the solution booklet it mentions that the password can be cleared by unpluging the jumper plug on the PSWR powering up and then putting it back on pins 2 & 3.

will this work? for my problem

[123Runner]

possible. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[icer]

well. that did not work

[BHowett]

BIOS or Operating System's passwords are there for the purpose related to Security and Privacy to protect the legitimate owner of a machine. While there are many locations on the Internet that might help you learn about managing passwords for a machine's BIOS or Operating System, we at G2G do not assist in what amounts to hacking past a machine's Security and Privacy safeguards.

While such requests are often legitimate, and come from users who experience exactly the kind of problem that you post, we have no way of determining legitimate vs. not legitimate, therefore we do not respond to such requests.

If you don't know the Administrator password, and don't have a password reset disk, then you will not be able to log on to Windows XP, and will need to reinstall the operating system and recreate any user accounts.

Thanks for your understanding

Edited by BHowett, 05 July 2008 - 08:43 AM.

[icer]

I am in the process of reinstalling xp.
is there anyway of recovering my pictures etc?

[123Runner]

Not after you do the re-install.
The easiest is to slave it to another computer.

[BHowett]

You could try a file recovery program, but what you can recover will depend on what was over written during the XP reinstall. It very unlikely that you will recover the pictures that you want. You could also send the drive to a professional data recovery service. However, you'll have to decide how valuable the files are to you. These companies don't come cheap, and the fee will depend on the condition of the drive and how much work the service has to do to recover the data.

[happyrock]

I may be to late but puppy linux ( my favorite )will run totally in ram and would recover all your data...but not if you have reinstalled windows
you also could have done a parallel install to recover your data (wannabe1's favorite)
both work but my way is faster..

Edited by happyrck, 05 July 2008 - 12:24 PM.

[icer]

update;

during reinstall I used one of the f numbers to gain access to user passwords.

there was nothing there but as I did not have a password anyway I thought oh well

continud with the reinstall and was totally amazed at the end that it had not overwritten anything at all.

a few thing appeared to be a bit screwy though.
sp2 gone as well as 81 crucial microsoft updates. I ran belarc. IE7 gone. photogallery kept trying to install and microsoft .net would not clear from screen and half a dozen other [bleep]ly things.

eventually managed to get sp2 so that i could download IE7 and updated crucial downloads.

made a password

everything all ok

at night I then put the system to hibernate but got a message that it would install updates & close down

this morning the same message was on the screen and guess what. NO ENTRY

Same thing although this time I had a password to put in.
Strangly though & I did not spot this yesterday, I do not get a message that the passord is incorrect, it just says that it is saving the setting and goes back to the start box.. yesterday as I said I did not have a password so putting nothing in the box elicited the same response as my new password does,.

Does anybody have any clue as to what might be wrong.

incidentally I ran avg. spybot. registry mechanic etc & did not seem to find much.

what is the way forward. If I could retrieve my data I could live with a reinstall I suppose. But could an idiot run puppy linux and where would i put the data could it go to dvd?

ian

[happyrock]

you can do this...these instructions are for saving your data to a usb flash drive but substitute...external usb hard drive if you have one of those..MAKE SURE a different computer can read them before wiping the drive with a clean install


puppy will load and run totally in ram...

get puppy linux...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd ...if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ......in this case its puppy linux
3. Select the ISO file
4. Suggestion ==> Check the option "Fix close"
5. Click on "Start"

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all yor data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...
==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...then drag the window to the
right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to

the narrowest you can..drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmounting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..