mellybelly said:
I changed my admin password before going on holiday so others couldn't
access my pc but now can't remember it myself (duh!). OS is XP
There must be a away around it. Can anyone help?
You don't mention whether this is XP Home or Pro, and the distinction is
important.
It's important because in XP Pro there's a feature called EFS, the
Encrypting File System, which is easy to set up and offers strong
encryption to keep your files private and protected.
However, the very easy set up does *not* require you to *back up the account
credentials*, so many people don't; neither do they set up a Recovery Agent.
And that means that when you follow advice to clear or change the password
from outside the account (which does work), or if the profile corrupts (as
happens), you also instantly and permanently lose decrypt access to
encrypted files.
That's why you regularly see people in these forums asking what they can do
to recover encrypted data, and unfortunately, the answer is very little.
So, if the OS is XP Pro, and if you think there is even the slightest
possibility that you used encryption, STOP. Take one of these two
options:
1) Try harder to remember the password.
2) Find a spare drive, clone the original drive to it, set the original
aside and install the clone; clear the passwords on THAT and determine
whether you had any encrypted files or if there are clues as to what the
password was. Re-clone as often as you need to, but do not alter the
original.
HTH
-pk
