Problem trying to reinstall windows SP

A friend's husband passed away and she is trying to gain access to his
laptop. She has been unable to guess his password and I offer to see if I
could assist. She does not want to delete and files because he may have some
important information on the laptop. For the same reason, she does not want
to take the laptop to some repair location to resolve the problem.

I changed the BIOS boot order to start with the CD/DVD and attempted to boot
from the CD. However, we are still taken to the windows login as
Administrator and Guest. I do not recall this happening when I have had to
reinstall windows in the pass. Have I missed something? Any help would be
appreciated.

We are trying to reinstall windows overtop of the old installation.

Mr Mike wrote:

A friend's husband passed away and she is trying to gain access to his
laptop. She has been unable to guess his password and I offer to see
if I
could assist. She does not want to delete and files because he may
have some
important information on the laptop. For the same reason, she does
not want to take the laptop to some repair location to resolve the
problem.

I changed the BIOS boot order to start with the CD/DVD and attempted
to boot
from the CD. However, we are still taken to the windows login as
Administrator and Guest. I do not recall this happening when I have
had to
reinstall windows in the pass. Have I missed something? Any help
would be appreciated.

We are trying to reinstall windows overtop of the old installation.

Please stop what you are doing. You are making it harder and increasing
the chances that your friend will lose her husband's files. There is no
reason to reinstall Windows because of a lost password. I'm assuming
the password is a Windows one and not a BIOS one.

For XP Home, simply boot the computer into Safe Mode by repeatedly
tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up. This will get you to
the correct menu; use your Up arrow key to navigate as the mouse
doesn't work here. Now you will be at the Welcome Screen and the
normally hidden built-in Administrator account will be visible. Unless
it was changed, the default password is a blank. Log into that account
and go to the User Accounts applet in Control panel where you can then
remove the password on her husband's account.

For XP Pro, at the Welcome Screen press Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the
classic logon box where you can type in "Administrator". It is less
likely that the Administrator password is a blank, however.

Otherwise, boot the computer with NTpasswd and change the Administrator
password to a blank. Then you can log in and remove the husband's
password. http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

If any of this seems too difficult - and there is no shame in admitting
this - then have your friend take the laptop to a professional computer
repair shop (not your local version of BigStoreUSA). It is hard enough
on her that her husband has died; you don't want her to lose the data
too.

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