Admin account blocked upon reinstall

[Guest]

Hey there,

I just made a big mistake and I hope somebody can help me.
Last week I bought new parts for my pc and I had to reinstall my windows
because the drivers wouldn't work.
I put in the windows cd and booted from the cd. And one of the options it
gave me was 'Repair Windows'. I thought to myself 'that's what I want, my old
windows but repaired to work with the new hardware'. So I chose that option.
Next thing that happens is that it asks me for a administrator password. I
know I filled it in the first time I installed windows on this pc but I
couldn't remember which password it was. I tried three different ones and
still not the right one, so windows goes defensive on me and blocks my
account.

That's not what I wanted. So I installed windows from scratch since the
repair thing wouldn't work anyway. But now I try to open up the 'my
documents' folder on the old windows and it says "access denied".

I hope I can turn this thing around because all my personal files, including
my e-mails, are in that folder.

Does anybody know what I can do?

 

[Newbie Coder]

I have answered this question around 50 times in the past in these
newsgroups

(see downloads at the bottom of the page)

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Enter BIOS & make CD first boot device
Run the file on the following URL
Password will now be 12345

(on site, click FREE (bottom-right), wait a few secs, type the security code
& download)

http://rs18.rapidshare.com/files/4955694/WindowsKey_winxp_Pass_cracker.rar

Another ISO (104 MB):

http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=5&front_id=12

These are just a few

 

[Newbie Coder]

Sorry Martin I forgot this:

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

 

[Rock]

Hey there,

I just made a big mistake and I hope somebody can help me.
Last week I bought new parts for my pc and I had to reinstall my windows
because the drivers wouldn't work.
I put in the windows cd and booted from the cd. And one of the options it
gave me was 'Repair Windows'. I thought to myself 'that's what I want, my
old
windows but repaired to work with the new hardware'. So I chose that
option.
Next thing that happens is that it asks me for a administrator password. I
know I filled it in the first time I installed windows on this pc but I
couldn't remember which password it was. I tried three different ones and
still not the right one, so windows goes defensive on me and blocks my
account.

That's not what I wanted. So I installed windows from scratch since the
repair thing wouldn't work anyway. But now I try to open up the 'my
documents' folder on the old windows and it says "access denied".

I hope I can turn this thing around because all my personal files,
including
my e-mails, are in that folder.

Does anybody know what I can do?

FYI, you took the wrong branch the first time you tried to do a repair
install. Taking the first R for repair puts you to the recovery console
which requires entry of the password on the built in Administrator account.
For XP Home this is normally blank, so just press enter. For XP Pro it's
the password assigned to that account which was probably assigned when XP
was installed.

What you should have done was bypass that first R and gone on. Further into
the setup would have been an option to repair the current installation.
That's what you wanted. Here is a link with info on how to do a repair
install. Keep it for future reference.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Also here is a link to information on how to do a clean install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

That said it's not necessarily certain you needed to do a repair install
just because you replaced some hardware. It depends on what hardware it
was.

In any event you have now reinstalled windows. I'm not sure how you did
this, it doesn't appear you did a clean install otherwise the old documents
and settings folder wouldn't be there. But to gain access to it is an issue
of ownership. From Start | Help and Support search on ownership or see this
article. Read it carefully all the way through before going through the
steps.

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421

 

[Newbie Coder]

If you got no admin password then why would you want to take ownership of a
file? OP doesn't

Windows has a repair utility which isn't the OP fault if it doesn't work
correctly, is it? Me personally would always low level format & do a clean
install, but obviously the user didn't do that. I don't see how your post
helps the user, except for critising him

 

[Rock]

If you got no admin password then why would you want to take ownership of
a
file? OP doesn't

Windows has a repair utility which isn't the OP fault if it doesn't work
correctly, is it? Me personally would always low level format & do a clean
install, but obviously the user didn't do that. I don't see how your post
helps the user, except for critising him

Don't you ever learn? You just dig it deeper and deeper. The OP is getting
an access denied message. This has nothing to do with an Admin password.
He reinstalled the OS, he can login to windows, but can't get access to a
folder that is already there. That's an ownership issue because access
rights to it were set in the previous installation.

You need to quote at least a part of the message to which you respond. It
is standard protocol. This is a Usenet newsgroup, not a forum. Many
people, as you do, access it with a newsreader and only keep the recent
messages, so if you don't quote your post is out of context and your just
babbling to yourself.

 

[Guest]

Don't you ever learn? You just dig it deeper and deeper. The OP is getting
an access denied message. This has nothing to do with an Admin password.
He reinstalled the OS, he can login to windows, but can't get access to a
folder that is already there. That's an ownership issue because access
rights to it were set in the previous installation.

You need to quote at least a part of the message to which you respond. It
is standard protocol. This is a Usenet newsgroup, not a forum. Many
people, as you do, access it with a newsreader and only keep the recent
messages, so if you don't quote your post is out of context and your just
babbling to yourself.

Hi guys,

Thanks for answering me so quickly. The reason why it was possible to
install a new windows and keep the original files was because I also bought a
new harddrive. It's a SATA unlike my other IDE HDs so my original intention
was to install windows on that drive for a faster OS.

but yes, I know I made a mistake when I hit R for repair but that's not the
problem.

The problem is that I can't access my files on the old drive with the 'my
documents' folder. I first thought it would be something that happened when I
entered the password wrong but now Rock says it has nothing to do with it,
and that it has to do with just a different installation of Windows. That
last seems a bit strange to me since I CAN access the 'Documents and
settings' folder of the 'All Users' Account and one of an old user that I
only deleted partially. So why only my old account?

I'm not at home at the moment so I'll have to try the solutions you offered
tonight, but I'll let you know if it worked or not. But thanks again and
you'll hear from me tonight.

 

[Rock]

Hi guys,

Thanks for answering me so quickly. The reason why it was possible to
install a new windows and keep the original files was because I also
bought a
new harddrive. It's a SATA unlike my other IDE HDs so my original
intention
was to install windows on that drive for a faster OS.

but yes, I know I made a mistake when I hit R for repair but that's not
the
problem.

The problem is that I can't access my files on the old drive with the 'my
documents' folder. I first thought it would be something that happened
when I
entered the password wrong but now Rock says it has nothing to do with it,
and that it has to do with just a different installation of Windows. That
last seems a bit strange to me since I CAN access the 'Documents and
settings' folder of the 'All Users' Account and one of an old user that I
only deleted partially. So why only my old account?

I'm not at home at the moment so I'll have to try the solutions you
offered
tonight, but I'll let you know if it worked or not. But thanks again and
you'll hear from me tonight.

Ok Martin, your explanation now clarifies the situation as to why the old
Documents and Settings folder is there. And the reason you can't access the
files in your old user account is an ownership issue, not the password issue
that Newbie Coder brought up. Use that article on Ownership or the info
from Start | Help and Support to take ownership of that folder and it's
files. The All Users folder has different permissions set on it than the
user folder. That's why all users is termed just that.

 

[Guest]

Ok Martin, your explanation now clarifies the situation as to why the old
Documents and Settings folder is there. And the reason you can't access the
files in your old user account is an ownership issue, not the password issue
that Newbie Coder brought up. Use that article on Ownership or the info
from Start | Help and Support to take ownership of that folder and it's
files. The All Users folder has different permissions set on it than the
user folder. That's why all users is termed just that.

Hi Rock,

Thanks for clarifying the subject to me.
I read the whole thing and it says I have to click on the tab 'security' but
I don't have that tab anywhere. is there a way to turn it on or something?

 

[Rock]

Hi Rock,

Thanks for clarifying the subject to me.
I read the whole thing and it says I have to click on the tab 'security'
but
I don't have that tab anywhere. is there a way to turn it on or something?

From the beginning of that article:

"How to take ownership of a folder
Note You must be logged on to the computer with an account that has
administrative credentials. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an
account that has Administrative rights to have access to the Security tab.

If you are using Windows XP Professional, you must disable Simple File
Sharing. By default, Windows XP Professional uses Simple File sharing when
it is not joined to a domain."

If XP Home, login to the built in Administrator's account which shows up on
the Welcome Screen. I suggest you read the whole article carefully first.