Adminstrator Login

[Mike]

I have PC with Windows XP professional on it. It was a
network, now it is a standalone. We got a bunch of new
PC's last summer, I am just getting around to using it, I
do not have a user name or password that work. Entering
the user and password from control/alt/delete tells me no
network connection, and when I try it from the "this
computer" drop down, I am told it is invalid. The
network when it was once installed is no longer available.

Is there a genric password or something that would let me
in? Or am I faced with re-imaging? It would be a shame
to lose the files.

Thanks....

[Malke]

Mike wrote:

> I have PC with Windows XP professional on it. It was a
> network, now it is a standalone. We got a bunch of new
> PC's last summer, I am just getting around to using it, I
> do not have a user name or password that work. Entering
> the user and password from control/alt/delete tells me no
> network connection, and when I try it from the "this
> computer" drop down, I am told it is invalid. The
> network when it was once installed is no longer available.
>
> Is there a genric password or something that would let me
> in? Or am I faced with re-imaging? It would be a shame
> to lose the files.
>
> Thanks....

From your description, you have a machine that was once connected to a
domain and is no longer. Further, you are saying that there is no local
Administrator account on the system, only the domain accounts. Is that
correct? In any case, you do not have any passwords.

It is best practice to clean install Windows on this machine since it
will be full of domain settings/references that no longer apply. If you
wish to retrieve the data, boot the machine with Knoppix, as follows:

An easy way to retrieve Windows files is to boot with Knoppix, a Linux
distro on a live cd. You will need a computer with two cd drives, one
of which is a cd/dvd-rw. To get Knoppix, you need a computer with a
fast Internet connection and third-party burning software. Download the
Knoppix .iso from www.knoppix.net and create your bootable cd. Then
boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. Use the K3b
burning program to burn the files to cd/dvd-r's.

Additionally, you can try to change the Administrator password on the
machine by booting with the ntpasswd utility:

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

but it really would be better to retrieve the data and start fresh.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"