Cannot login to Win2000, but username/pass weren't changed...

[Guest]

Hello! I may have broken my Windows 2000 access, it seems. I wanted to set up
an automatic logon so that I could dispense with entering my
username/password everytime I turned the machine on (IBM Thinkpad T23).
Somewhere on the Internet I found a DITY site saying that I could do this by
changing my Network Identification settings from Domain to Workgroup, which I
did. Now Windows won't recognize my password and says that my username and
domain might be incorrect. But I can't change my domain without logging in...
so, does anyone know a way out of this catch-22 I've gotten myself into? Is
there some way I'm suppposed to combine my username and domain name when
logging in as a Workgroup? I know for certain I didn't change my password,
but nonetheless I can't login. I'd really like to avoid taking my laptop to
a repair shop and having it formatted and reloaded, as there are important
files on there that I don't want to lose.

Thanks,
Andreas

 

[Roger Abell]

Once a machine is disjoined from a domain, domain accounts
can no longer be used to log into it. Only accounts defined on
the machine itself are then available.
If you are on the network local to the domain, you might have
permissions to rejoin it (if you were on that network when you
disjoined it). Otherwise, you need those that manage the domain
to resolve this for you.

 

[Guest]

Ouch. Problem is that I bought this laptop from my university's surplus
property office, so I can't connect to a network in any way at all and the IT
guys have washed their hands of it. I've just always had to login before
using it and I was trying to find a way to skip that step when I started this
trouble. Is there no way to fix this?

Thanks,
Andreas

 

[Roger Abell]

So you evidently never added a local admin account (that
would survive the disjoining) and did not set the password
of any existing local admin account. In that event, other than
what help the first paragraph might give you, you will have
to crack into the machine. See info at
http://securityadmin.info/faq.asp#password

Personally, I would never take over a machine with unknown
history except by starting with a fresh installation. That is the
only way to hope to know that the machine is actually clean of
hidden pests - some of which can be hazardous to your privacy
and financial, etc. wellbeing.

If you bought the machine with Windows installed, I believe
they were required to surrender the media and license key
at that time in the transfer. I could be wrong, and am always
a little fuzzy about the legal workings, so your mileage may
vary. IOW as I understand things they should have sold it
without an OS installed if they were not transferring a licence
for the OS, which would have included a way to reinstall.

So, your best recourse is to obtain access, by tweaking a
password if necessary, logging in to get what you may want
off of there, and then reformatting all disk space and laying
down your new OS home.