WTF- can't log on in win2k pro- please help

[Sandor]

I can't log onto windows 2000 pro and I don't know why. I only have one account set up and never set a password (the user name would appear at startup, and I would just hit enter). For some reason, it doesn't work now- I get a meassage "The system could not log you on. Make sure name and domain are correct..." I also can't log in thorugh Administrator- I get the same message. I tried Guest, and it said it was inactivated. Either someone messed with the setup (doubtful) or something is wrong. Is there a regisrty trick? Could I install win2k over the old one and retain the programs (office, adobe, etc) and the desktop/my document files? I would like to aviod re-installing it, but is a last resort. Thanks.

 

[abovewood]

Is Win2k installed on a FAT32 or NTFS partition?

 

[Sandor]

Its on a FAT32 partition. I found a program at: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ that looks like it may help, but I won't be able to try it out until tomorrow. Any other advice is still appreciated, and I'll report if the above freeware utility helps. I'm just worried that since there was never a password (so its not really a lost password), that the problem may be more deeply rooted.

 

[abovewood]

You can try this first:

Boot from a win98 startup floppy disk, then go to:

C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG

delete thhose file(s):

SAM

and SAM.log, SAM.old if they are found.

then when you boot back to Win2k, there is no password, just hit enter.

Worked for me when I reloaded a ghost hard drive image and forgot what the password was.

The same informaton is found on the page you posted too.

 

[Sandor]

I'm in!! That little program worked like a charm.

Thanks abovewood- you're way would be quicker and easier than the program. I think the only advantage of the program is that is allows to see user names and to reset individual passwords rather than all passwsords at once. But if you only have one user (like me), deleting the SAM files would work just the same. My only concern was that since there was now a password (when there was not one ever), I wanted to see if my user name still existed. Now I'm just curious how it all got changed.