restore lost account password

[eric t]

I have a user that purchased a PC second hand with Win XP
Home edition as the operation system. The user tried to
install software and for some reason the install did not
go well. Then the user tried to do a Restore and get back
to the prior configuration. Now they cannot use this PC
because they restored to a configuration that has only one
account set up as the administrator and they do not know
the password for this account. I have not seen this user
yet so I have not tried to boot in safe mode and choose
administrator and leave the password blank. I plan on
doing that of course. My question is besides purchasing
third party recovery software is there anything else that
can be done to get into this machine? Can I reinstall Win
XP over the existing installation and re-create the admin
account??? Please help.

[Alex V.]

They just reviewed a simplar case on The Screen Savers this week, see the
URL below. Good luck.

Crack Windows Passwords
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3425923,00.html

[Larry]

Try here. You will have to build a boot disk, but it will display passwords
and allow you to change them or delete them

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/



"eric t" > wrote in message
...
> I have a user that purchased a PC second hand with Win XP
> Home edition as the operation system. The user tried to
> install software and for some reason the install did not
> go well. Then the user tried to do a Restore and get back
> to the prior configuration. Now they cannot use this PC
> because they restored to a configuration that has only one
> account set up as the administrator and they do not know
> the password for this account. I have not seen this user
> yet so I have not tried to boot in safe mode and choose
> administrator and leave the password blank. I plan on
> doing that of course. My question is besides purchasing
> third party recovery software is there anything else that
> can be done to get into this machine? Can I reinstall Win
> XP over the existing installation and re-create the admin
> account??? Please help.