Unable to log on and cant get into SAFE mode - IM DOOMED!!

[Ollie]

Hey guys I need an experts opinion on how to get out of a self
inflicted PC disaster of the dumbest kind.

I was trying to set up my desktop to boot straight to desktop, as you
do, and came across something on the net that looked like it would
work. Now before I go any further I've done some stupid things before
on my PC where I try for ages to sort it out and eventually succeed,
but this one looks like ive shot myself in the foot big time.

When I boot up I get the screen:

Unable to log on because of an account restriction.

Now this would be ok if I could boot into SAFE mode, although tapping
of F8 or holding it down only flashes up a glimpse on the option
screen when entering safe mode and then its gone in less than a
second. It then sits then and does nothing at all. I fear I have
totally buggered my PC and will have to resort to swapping in an old
hard drive ive got, reformat it, load XP and then use the old drive as
an external while I transfer any stuff I want, this doesnt sound too
bad until I say that my old drive is 60gig and my current buggered one
is 250gig which is full up, arg! So how did I get to this sad state of
affairs well I was trying to be clever and boot straight to desktop
and so I ran:

control userpasswords2
cleared the Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This
Computer check box and then clicked OK.

although I was then met with another dialogue box saying something
about Administration passwords which I thought was odd as it wasnt
mentioned in the guide I read and now cant find (probably due to my
rage at my dumbness clouding my recent memory), so instead of entering
anything i just closed it down and thought nice, ready to go. Also
note I had a spidey sense moment before I carried this out that I
could bugger up my pc as I am wont to do, taking note of this sixth
sense ( or maybe just common sense) I instated a password to my normal
user account beforehand so if anything went wrong Id be ok,
unfortunately due to the nature of what Ive done this appears to be
redundant and the password doesnt work in the log on box that is
available after the Unable to log on blah blah blah message appears.
Ive tried numerous combinations, with and without Administrator and my
username, guest etc etc and unless anyone can asisst this sad dumb
idiotic fool that is me I will have to get ready for a time consuming
system setup and data recovery procedure that i havent really got time
for.

Yours
Big fat dumb ass
aka Ollie

 

[Ollie]

As a follow up, F8 actually flashes up a screen with a small box
either background blue and box black with white writing or box blue
with black background, anyway at the top it says Floppy something
before it disappears again, there are other options by the look but I
cant seem to focus on them quick enough for some reason, i could film
it I suppose and slow it down but that getting more time consuming
than a full OS reformat etc. When I use F2 isntead of F8 I get my set
up mode screen, I think, for about a millisecond before it disappers,
also my user account was set as an administraor which may be relevant
or not.
(

 

[Elmo]

As a follow up, F8 actually flashes up a screen with a small box
either background blue and box black with white writing or box blue
with black background, anyway at the top it says Floppy something
before it disappears again, there are other options by the look but I
cant seem to focus on them quick enough for some reason, i could film
it I suppose and slow it down but that getting more time consuming
than a full OS reformat etc. When I use F2 isntead of F8 I get my set
up mode screen, I think, for about a millisecond before it disappers,
also my user account was set as an administraor which may be relevant
or not.

Try pecking the F5 key upon startup and see if the menu screen stop for
you. F8 is sometimes used for other options such as selecting a boot
device.

 

[John John]

Hold the SHIFT key after Windows restarts.

John

 

[Ollie]

Hey guys thanks for the swift response you just caught me curling up
into a ball whilst crying softly and sucking my thumb as I
contemplated installing XP, SP2, installing drivers, software and
settings, reconnecting to the network and sorting out my data by
reformatting and installing XP on a different drive meaning ive got to
install xp twice sheesshh!! I tried out the F5 idea and to no avail, I
also tried every F key tapping and holding which was fun. Also tried
the shift key idea in combination with f keys and on its own holding
it down, also held it down before windows had started and just as
wondows started as I dont see the windows loading screen just a blue
screen and then the damn error message arg, all to no avail too.
Anyways looks like I better get on the long road to format and
installation land unless someone can come up with something genius in
the next hour or two, at least ive still got a separate pc to get on
the net otherwise i think I really would cry, ah the sweet aroma of
hysteria...

 

[John John]

What happens if you do Ctrl+Alt+Del? Not yet time to reinstall.
Getting to a Safe-Mode boot should allow you to fix the problem.
Sometimes it's difficult to get there with the F8 key, it needs to be
pressed at the right time on some computers. If you tried it in all
maners and if you tried Joe's (Elmo) suggetions but still cannot get to
Safe-Mode then there are other things that you can try.

If you have a floppy drive on the computer you can make a boot floppy
and put the safe mode switch in the boot.ini file. To create a boot
floppy do the following:

Format the diskette on a Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer. DO NOT
use a Windows 9x computer, if you do the diskette will fail. At a
Command Prompt format with this command: format a: /u

Copy the following files from your Windows XP cd to the floppy:

ntldr
ntdetect.com

Save the text below in a Notepad file and save it as boot.ini Copy the
boot.ini file to the diskette.


[boot loader]
timeout=-1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="HDD1 Partition 1 Normal
Boot" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="HDD1 Partition 1 Safe Mode"
/safeboot:minimal


The file (ARC Path) assumes that Windows is installed on the first
partition of the first hard disk, if it is on a different disk or
partition the multi(0)... line has to be changed accordingly. Try to
boot with the diskette and see if the second option can boot to safe mode.

If that fails you can mount the hard disk in another Windows XP
copmputer or use a Bart's PE disk with a Registry Editor plugin and load
the registry's SYSTEM hive of broken installation and change the
following entries in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

AutoAdminLogon
ForceAutologon

Change values from 1 (true) to 0 (false) on both entries.

John

 

[Postilion]

Hey guys thanks for the swift response you just caught me curling up
into a ball whilst crying softly and sucking my thumb as I
contemplated installing XP, SP2, installing drivers, software and
settings, reconnecting to the network and sorting out my data by
reformatting and installing XP on a different drive meaning ive got to
install xp twice sheesshh!! I tried out the F5 idea and to no avail, I
also tried every F key tapping and holding which was fun. Also tried
the shift key idea in combination with f keys and on its own holding
it down, also held it down before windows had started and just as
wondows started as I dont see the windows loading screen just a blue
screen and then the damn error message arg, all to no avail too.
Anyways looks like I better get on the long road to format and
installation land unless someone can come up with something genius in
the next hour or two, at least ive still got a separate pc to get on
the net otherwise i think I really would cry, ah the sweet aroma of
hysteria...

Since you have never signed in successfully after the changes an
option might be "Last known Good Configuration".
Are you able to view that as an option? If all else fails with the
suggestions of others and the PC is a Windows XP system you may wish
to consider trying to use the XP disc if it is available to force a
partial registry restore. Check out the following for details.
http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1167895,00.html

 

[Ollie]

Hey guys, tried the floppy as a boot disk but no go with the .ini file
saved on it, not sure if this matters but my hard drive is in NTFS
format and the diskette is FAT - thought I read somewhere this may
screw me over with boot disks?

(((((John)))))) you say to load the registry's SYSTEM hive of broken
installation - how do I do this from a newb come simpleton's
perspective? also can I do this by just using the defunct OS drive as
an external hard drive on an xp computer?

(((((Position)))))) if I force an XP partial registry restore will my
system be back to usual in parts and back to scratch in other parts
because its only a partial restore or will it just enable me to get in
to reset the password settings?

Thanks for your help guys, Ive been looking at what software and data
I had installed on it and its gonna take me a few solid days work to
get it back to some semblance of its previous self which is not
something I really want to face (

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hey guys, tried the floppy as a boot disk but no go with the .ini file
saved on it, not sure if this matters but my hard drive is in NTFS
format and the diskette is FAT - thought I read somewhere this may
screw me over with boot disks?

No. I'm coming late to the thread and don't know what your problem is, but
let me point out that floppies are aleays FAT (FAT12, to be precise). There
is never any issue with compatibility between them and an NTFS hard drive.

 

[John John]

Hey guys, tried the floppy as a boot disk but no go with the .ini file
saved on it, not sure if this matters but my hard drive is in NTFS
format and the diskette is FAT - thought I read somewhere this may
screw me over with boot disks?

The file system of the Windows installation doesn't matter, if the
floppy is properly made and if the ARC path in the Boot.ini is correct
it will boot the Windows installation, providing that the installation
is bootable of course. You did go in the BIOS and set the computer to
boot to the diskette first to try it, did you? What error message did
you receive when you tried to boot with the floppy?

(((((John)))))) you say to load the registry's SYSTEM hive of broken
installation - how do I do this from a newb come simpleton's
perspective? also can I do this by just using the defunct OS drive as
an external hard drive on an xp computer?

Yes, that is how you would do it. Mount the disk onto another Windows
installation and use the Registry Editor's "Load Hive" feature to load
the broken registry hive and do the changes. Easy to follow
instructions for doing this are shown here:
http://www.rwin.ch/xp-live/regedit.htm

The hive to load would be the *SOFTWARE* hive, without an extension (I
made a mistake in my other post). Here again, if you can get to the F8
prompt it would be easier to do it with System Restore from the command
prompt. Use this remote registry edit method only if you cannot do it
by safe mode or if other option at the F8 screen fail.

There are yet other methods of restoring the system to a previous state.
It all depends on how obstinate you are and how much effort you want
to put in the recovery of your Windows installation. As you already
know reinstalling all your software and tweaking every thing to your
liking is a lot of work! If you want to keep on trying let us know and
we can offer further help, you can for example return your installation
to a previous state via the Recovery Console if you are so inclined to
do so. Of course if you decide that it is all too much effort you can
simply do an In-Place Upgrade (repair install) and hope for the best. I
think the installation can be recovered by other means but it is for you
to decide if you want to try other methods before reinstalling.

Regards;

John

 

[Guest]

Do you have an OEM system disc? ( Is it HP or other ).

 

[Ollie]

Hey John n all,

Just to say Ive sorted it out by editing the registry as suggested.
There was an AutoAdminLogon which I turned to a false entry however
there was no ForceAutoLogon rather a ForceUnlockLogon, I left it as it
was, a 0, and tried the drive again and still got the dumb password
screen if I let it run, however.... I was able to see the setup or
boot screen and was also able to get into SAFE mode at last and sort
everything out. So my self inflicted wound has been healed! Many
thanks to all and especially to you John for your quality and much
needed assistance you've saved me a lot of time and frustration and
Ive learned something new too D

All the best guys and thanks again!
Ollie

 

[John John]

You're welcome. Thanks for the follow up.

John