My friends laptop got stolen the other night. Thankfully we got it back today. However a password had been added by the person who stole it. We don't have any way to figure out what the new password is. Laptop is an inspiron 2200 running xp pro. I got myself a program to bypass the password, but I am unable to get the laptop to boot from the cd. No matter where I put the cd drive in the boot order it fails to load. I get a small blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner for about 30 seconds, then it goes to the next boot device. Tried burning cds with several different programs, no luck. Anyone have any ideas?
Bypassing the windows xp password
- Thread starter imported_Zeke
- Start date
Let me see if I can dig up my old xp cd. Im thinking there might be something wrong with the cd drive. Its not a new machine.
Still trying to round up an xp cd, but I have also tried hooking up and external cd drive and getting that to boot. No luck so far.
- Mar 4, 2000
- 27,370
- 240
- 106
It seems to me that the password was added to the BIOS, not XP, and in doing that, the perp removed the CD drive from the boot list. Finding a laptop BIOS password is not easy - it is made deliberately difficult by the OEM - you may have to send the laptop to Dell and they can crack it for you.
FYI
FYI
I can get into the bios fine, change whatever I want. Also, I just tested the cds and they boot fine on my laptop.
- Mar 4, 2000
- 27,370
- 240
- 106
OK - that wasn't clear at the outset. Check the boot order in BIOS. The CD drive could be damaged. Does the laptop have a floppy? You may have to borrow a USB drive.
Or - remove the HDD from the laptop, put it in an external case, and access it from another system and then detect the password.
Or - remove the HDD from the laptop, put it in an external case, and access it from another system and then detect the password.
USB cd drive wont boot either. Messed with every possible boot order, and the laptop has no floppy.
As for the drive being broken, I can hear it trying to access the disks, so its spinning but thats all I know.
Guess I had better go find an external case.
PS the clunky Dell bios makes me angry
Would it be feasible to put his drive into my laptop and do it that way? Seems like it would work to me.
WoodButcher
Platinum Member
- Mar 10, 2001
- 2,158
- 0
- 76
If you can put it into another maccine as a slave or secondary to gain access or reformat sure, but I would not attempt to use it as a boot drive in a different machine. I have an adaptor that will connect hard drives externally to USB.
Boot to safemode (F8). Login under Administrator account. Blank password if the alternate logon screen is being used. Can reset password in there, if the Administrator account hasn't been password protected.
When you get the blinking screen, did you press any key and see if it boots?
I don't know about dell laptop, but in HP laptop there is also a disable options for boot device. So even if you place it in the right order, if the device is disable, it will not boot from there. There is usually an exclamation mark next to the device that is disabled. Like I said, I saw this on an HP laptop though.
I don't know about dell laptop, but in HP laptop there is also a disable options for boot device. So even if you place it in the right order, if the device is disable, it will not boot from there. There is usually an exclamation mark next to the device that is disabled. Like I said, I saw this on an HP laptop though.
that'll work in xp pro as well. I had to reset a password couple weeks ago on my grandpas new hp laptop. The laptop he bought from sam clubs was a floor model, some moron put a password on the user account created by sam clubs. So I had to log into safe mode, and log on as administrator, (thanks goodness there was no password set to the administrator account) delete the user account that was created, and make a new user account for my grandpa
Yeah I checked that out. Disabling and enabling is fully functional, I can set it so it wont boot from the hard drive at all for example. Unfortunately this doesn't help.
I think you can do this in Home edition not sure about Pro but you can boot into safe mod and change the password from there reboot into normal and the password will be changed.
kinda sad if you think about it
It's very good it wasn't a bios password you should be able to crack this very easily with some software or going around like this way
kinda sad if you think about it
It's very good it wasn't a bios password you should be able to crack this very easily with some software or going around like this way
This may be a dumb answer, but, hit F12 upon boot to get the boot options and try to boot from the CD. Also, I use either ultimate boot cd or Hiren's boot cd to reset passwords.
I had a similar problem with a laptop I had yesterday. What I found out was that my DVD drive was treated as a removable device, although it's an internal drive. See if the bios has a removable device boot option, and choose it before you boot from CD or hard drive. That worked for me.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 22K
-
News NVIDIA and Intel to Develop AI Infrastructure and Personal Computing Products- Started by poke01
- Replies: 384
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
Facebook
Twitter