Windows 2000 Professional

[Ruckas]

Alright guys,

When win2k came out. I went ahead and installed it on my mothers laptop. Basically to see if I liked it.. She never uses it, it's a p2 300

A week ago she flips it on. Says it wants a password. She can't remember so she asks me... I try to think back, remember this is like 2-3 YEARS! so I draw a blank. My question is obvious.

Q: Is there anyway to find out the password? Or perhaps enter a new one without the old one?

I have absolutely no idea what I made the password...

 

[Apathetic]

There have been losts of posts here in the past about recovering a Win2K administrator password. Just do a search. From what I remember, there is a boot floppy you can download which will set the admin password to something known (this is the east way). If you want the long drawn out way, you can do a search at www.jsiinc.com and then look under registry hacks).

Dave

 

[HJB417]

delete the sam file, I believe

 

[foofoo]

this thread may help.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=1167944
worked for me.
good luck

 

[Ruckas]

Ok, I have no access to a floppy drive for this thing. And for some reason I can't access the bios to boot from CD-rom. I made an iso like the thread you guys gave me said I should... But I got nothing...

God I wish I could just remember the damn password.@#$.

If you guys have any more detailed help, I would appreciate it.

 

[HJB417]

is the drive ntfs or fat?

 

[Ruckas]

Fat32....

Another question, what is the default user/pass? admin/admin?
If it's something you can't say to the general public, email me...
My mah is ready to kick me in the nuts

rxruckas@comcast.net

Ruckas-

 

[HJB417]

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win2000/t1060267935

 

[Ruckas]

So this CHPASS...

I just run the exe in dos? How do I get win2k to boot to dos? A boot disk?

Ruckas-

 

[HJB417]

Originally posted by: Ruckas
So this CHPASS...

I just run the exe in dos? How do I get win2k to boot to dos? A boot disk?

Ruckas-

go to http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and download the win98 se oem disk creator.

 

[foofoo]

Ok, I have no access to a floppy drive for this thing. And for some reason I can't access the bios to boot from CD-rom.

if this is the case, i think that you may be out of luck for an easy solution. you need a floppy or cd to boot in order to reset the administrator password. you might try booting from a usb flash drive but that's usually lower in the boot order than a cdrom.
the easiest thing to do is to do the research to figure out how to get into the bios and get it to boot from the cd. if that cant be done, you can take the hd out, mount it in another pc with an nt based operating system and a ide adapter and edit the password .sam file with the utilities given in the earlier link and then put the hd back in the laptop and you should be good to go.
this is a bit of work though. easier to get it to boot from cd.
good luck.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Try typing "mother", I think that's the default one. At least that's how it is at our school, not sure if it's windows default or just set by the school. At my house when I installed it I was asked to enter one and just left it blank so I assume you actually entered it and that it's not default, but worth trying.

 

[sciencewhiz]

Originally posted by: foofoo

Ok, I have no access to a floppy drive for this thing. And for some reason I can't access the bios to boot from CD-rom.

if this is the case, i think that you may be out of luck for an easy solution. you need a floppy or cd to boot in order to reset the administrator password. you might try booting from a usb flash drive but that's usually lower in the boot order than a cdrom.

It's a p2 300, no way it supports booting from a usb drive.

You can buy a laptop to desktop ide converter and put the drive in a different computer and try one of the methods to reset the password.

 

[Ruckas]

Bah, I'm studying for 2 midterms. And I have a huge paper due on the 30th about domestic violence. Soon as all this is over, I'll start paying closer attention to this.

Thanks alot you guys, for the input. I'll post what happens in case someone else runs into this problem.

Ruckas-

 

[JRez]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
Try typing "mother", I think that's the default one. At least that's how it is at our school, not sure if it's windows default or just set by the school. At my house when I installed it I was asked to enter one and just left it blank so I assume you actually entered it and that it's not default, but worth trying.

How did you get the school's admin password?? Which school is it BTW??

 

[JRez]

Oops... 2x post

 

[Ruckas]

Just thought I would come back and mention my outcome. Case anyone cares.

I gave it to my friend, and paid him 20 bucks to re install windows XP.. Heh..

I can't get into the bios, so I can't tell it to boot from CD-rom, and it has no floppy drive.. So I banged my head against the wall until I realized I know someone who works for Toshiba... Very long and lame story short...

Ruckas-