Win2K administrator password not working

[flavio]

I changed my network settings on my work laptop so that I could use it at home with my cable modem. I came back to work and I can't chnge the settings back.

There used to be several profiles to choose from on the login screen, now there's no drop-down list at all to choose from. I can't use most of my software anymore the way I'm logged in now.

I got the administrator password from our administrator and that doesn't work any more.

What the heck is going on?

 

[celeritas]

Win2k? FAT32 or NTFS? If FAT32 (and you can afford to lose the contents of \Documents and Settings\(profiles), then boot into DOS, go to the C:\WINNT\system32\config folder, and delete "SAM." Reboot and you will be able to login to the Administrator account with no password.

If NTFS, get the trial version of ERD Commander here, and follow the steps above once you get into pseudo-DOS mode.

 

[flavio]

It's FAT32. Losing the contents of \Documents I could care less about. If I lose profiles though what all will that effect?

 

[celeritas]

For every account on the system, you will lose the contents of the desktop, favorities, my documents, local settings, start menu, etc. folders; i.e., everything profile-specifc. You may want to make sure you don't need anything (Outlook, OE, etc.) and back stuff up, if necessary.

Your "regular" programs should be fine, though.

 

[mastarecoil]

Somewhere on the net I found a neat little utility that will make you a boot disk that after booting will override the admins password with whatever you give it. You may want to go look for that, I would think its worth a try.

Garrett.

 

[gordita]

do any of the above OR just install a fresh copy of win2k on another partition and log on and change the previous admin password....