how to install XP on password locked Sony Vaio with 2000 installed?

[nikko]

Trying to help out a friend. He has a laptop with Windows 2000 installed and it's password protected. He doesn't know the password and someone told him (and i don't know enough to dispute this) that 2000 doesn't have a DOS mode. I'm not even sure why that would matter. Anyway, if he reboots with a bootable XP disc in the CD-ROM, he should be good to go, right? Any idea what the key to bring up the bios is on the Sony Vaio? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Turn in the stolen goods.

- M4H

 

[rivethead]

Since that's kind of an OS issue, you might have better luck in the Operating System forum.

But there may be more people here.


Ya never know.

 

[stickybytes]

Originally posted by: nikko
Trying to help out a friend. He has a laptop with Windows 2000 installed and it's password protected. He doesn't know the password and someone told him (and i don't know enough to dispute this) that 2000 doesn't have a DOS mode. I'm not even sure why that would matter. Anyway, if he reboots with a bootable XP disc in the CD-ROM, he should be good to go, right? Any idea what the key to bring up the bios is on the Sony Vaio? Thanks in advance for your help.

if you go by logic, yes it should boot right up but unfourtantely we're dealing with a sony vaio notebook here. i also have a sony notebook(SR-5k) pre-loaded with win2000 and i also tried upgrading to win xp. i stuck in the cd into my addonics cd rom drive but the computer would not boot from the win xp disc. i checked the bios, everything looked fine. the problem turned out to be that you must use a sony cd rom drive when loading os. its just one of sony's proprietary nuances.

i don't know if the bios key varies with each model but on mine, the trigger is F2 at the sony logo splash screen.

 

[imported_Hi]

try system restore


most pc's come with that

 

[shabby]

Its possible to get rid of the password, first you have to find out which service pack he has installed. If its sp3 or below and its running fat32 instead of ntfs, use a win98 boot disk and boot into dos then delete/rename the SAM file in the winnt\system32\config dir. If he has sp4 installed its a whole lot trickier since syskey protection is enabled and it gets pretty involved to remove the password.

 

[Penth]

Google is your friend. Linky

 

[Cobalt]

Make a windows 98se boot disk on a floppy and use fdisk to format the drive, then go from there, unless you're trying to just upgrade. If you're just trying to upgrade go into bios and make sure in boot properties that boot from cd drive is #1. Then stick in the XP disc and boot from it, it should give you the option to do an upgrade install.