- Oct 21, 2007
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Just got an IM from a friend who does missionary work in Mexico. He has a Compaq laptop, model # C500, running Vista Basic.
The laptop has an admin and a guest account. One of the kids at the mission was using the lappy while logged in as Admin.
After a restart the admin account cannot be signed into. They claim to have tried everything.
Is there a way to log in as admin without the password?
I am assuming for the moment the answer is no. The concern then is to recover the data and reinstall. He has the COA sticker with key
but no HP restore disk. My experience is that usually the OS and original software is normally kept on a hidden partition and the unit can be restored by rebooting and holding down F11 or something similar. If I had the unit here I would just use a bootable Linux CD, start up and drag and drop all data
needed to an external drive, then reinstall Vista and all that goes with a fresh install.
Questions are:
Is there a way to log in as admin without the password?
If the OS is not on a hidden partition that can be restored, how do I contact HP to buy the restore disks? I know they are like $ 25.00 or something like that.
Has anyone had to get restore disks from HP and can you tell me the procedure so I don't have to go searching around for it? I dread having to call them as I hate having to talk to people who won't listen to me who I also can't understand very well.
Thank you in advance.
The laptop has an admin and a guest account. One of the kids at the mission was using the lappy while logged in as Admin.
After a restart the admin account cannot be signed into. They claim to have tried everything.
Is there a way to log in as admin without the password?
I am assuming for the moment the answer is no. The concern then is to recover the data and reinstall. He has the COA sticker with key
but no HP restore disk. My experience is that usually the OS and original software is normally kept on a hidden partition and the unit can be restored by rebooting and holding down F11 or something similar. If I had the unit here I would just use a bootable Linux CD, start up and drag and drop all data
needed to an external drive, then reinstall Vista and all that goes with a fresh install.
Questions are:
Is there a way to log in as admin without the password?
If the OS is not on a hidden partition that can be restored, how do I contact HP to buy the restore disks? I know they are like $ 25.00 or something like that.
Has anyone had to get restore disks from HP and can you tell me the procedure so I don't have to go searching around for it? I dread having to call them as I hate having to talk to people who won't listen to me who I also can't understand very well.
Thank you in advance.
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