Hi Bill,
You are in the right place (the Recoveryu Console) as far as fixing it goes.
Reset the Admin password by logging on as another user with Admin-level
proviledges. If it persists, you may be the victim of sysprep, see:
Cannot Log On to Recovery Console After Running Sysprep [Q308402]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308402
If so, the solution is to use the boot disk sets described in the article.
Once into the Recovery Console, you need to run fixboot from the prompt.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Win98 Help -
www.rickrogers.org
"Bill" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:AEE31C05-61CA-4B2F-B213-(E-Mail Removed)...
> This is a different William with a similar problem.
>
> My XP Pro won't boot. It gives me a "no O/S" error message. If I put the
> XP installation CD in and ignore the prompt to boot from CD, the system
> boots and runs normally. I tried running the recovery console to fix the
> MBR (which I'm guessing is the problem) but get prompted for the
> administrator password. To the best of my recollection, I never set this
> password. I have tried all my common passwords, including "admin" and
> others, but I can't get the right password. Since I can get the system to
> run, I have gotten all the data saved elsewhere.
>
> I would like to resolve this problem without losing all the settings,
> programs etc. through fdisk (wait... this is NTFS) so I hope someone can
> point me in the right direction.. If not, tell me the "nuke & pave" way
> to do it!