Locked out of Windows

[Hayzie]

Some friends of mine's computer crashed, and when they restarted it, it now will not accept their password.

Do any of ya'll know a way to get back into Windows? I read in a book that some computers store a password in the CMOS, and you can clear the password by clearing the CMOS, but it didn't say what computers that may be or how to find out. Will that ability be Motherboard/bios/CMOS specific or OS specific. Also I'm not 100% sure what OS they are using, but I am about 90% sure it's Windows ME, however, it could be either 98se or XPHome also. I forgot to find out, and can't get in touch with them for a day or two.


I am not much of a computer whiz, but I'm a lot more knowledgable than they are, and I promised them I would try to find an answer, so if any one has any thoughts on what to try, I would really appreciate it.

Kris

 

[Buzzman151]

Well we do need to know what kind of operating system it is to help you w/ the password recovery. BUT, just b/c the comptuer crashed, there is no reason for it not to accept the password unless he was altering the user account when it crashed. It sounds like the user data might be corrupted. If this is the case, all you should have to do is get a Win98 boot disk, let it boot to the command prompt, run scandisk on the A: drive (it should be called scndsk.exe or something like that) See what results you get from that route.

 

[Buzzman151]

BTW, what was he doing when it crashed?

 

[altonb1]

Depending on the OS, you can sometimes boot in safe mode and and get to the user account info. XP has this exploit available, but I don't know about others.

If he has Win 9x, just simply hit escape when you get to the prompt. Look in the windows sub-sirectory for *.pwl, and delete the one that corresponds to his user account. This will allow him to then log out, create the same account over again and enter a password. The 1st password used will be the default password for the account.

 

[redbeard1]

Does it try to get into windows when they turn it on, or does it just sit there asking for a password? If it is trying to get into windows, and needs a password, that's different than if it's just sitting there, stuck on the first post screen.

 

[Keysplayr]

If it is Win 98 or ME, just hit the escape key. If it is XP, you will need to delete the SAM (security accounts Manager) database. I'm not exactly sure how to proceed with this.
You can search google for the steps. You will need a Win XP bootable floppy set or a CD.

Good Luck,

Keys

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
If it is Win 98 or ME, just hit the escape key. If it is XP, you will need to delete the SAM (security accounts Manager) database. I'm not exactly sure how to proceed with this.
You can search google for the steps. You will need a Win XP bootable floppy set or a CD.

Good Luck,

Keys

sweet, I have a computer at work that I need to do this too!