HELP - Changed domain to workgroup and cannot login.

[Brian Allston]

Purchased my old laptop from my former employer upon separation. I had to
wipe it clean so I wanted to copy all personal data to my home desktop
through my home network. I changed the laptop's network settings from my
company's domain to my home workgroup and rebooted. I cannot login to
windows after the reboot using either the Administrator account and
password or my account and password (it has administrator rights). Any
suggestions on how I can regain access to the PC? Thanks

 

[Roger Abell [MVP]]

After leaving a domain only machine local accounts remain available.
If Administrator is not working then either it was renamed or you have
the wrong password.
If you have no local admin account then
1. get them to tell you the local admin account name and password
2. get then to readd it to the domain so you can do this correctly by
first making sure you can log in with a local admin before you
disjoin the machine
3. get them to do 2 and then 1 for you, leaving the machine afterwards
removed from the domain
4. try a side-by-side install in order to log in sufficiently long to get
the data you are after
5. hang the disk into a different system to get the data (there are
notebook to normal disk adapters)

 

[Brian Allston]

Thanks. As it turns out, the IT admin gave me an incorrect notebook
Administrator password. All is well now.