Can't get into computer with Windows XP - don't know the password

[Nikki Rosner]

I received a PC that was a "give away". It's a decent system and I'd
like to reformat it and give to someone who could use it, but it has
XP on it and a password that no one can track down. I've tried
booting into Administrator while leaving the password blank and that
doesn't work. I've tried that in regular mode and in safe mode.

I'd like to just wipe it clean and start over, but the boot floppy I
have won't boot up the PC, and I can only assume it has something to
do with the CDROM being scuzzy, or this darn password in Windows.

I don't care to save a thing on this HD. Any suggestions on how I can
fdisk it?

 

[TJ]

What OS are you going to install?
Windows XP doesn't use a "boot floppy" to install itself. You need to boot
directly from the Windows XP CD-ROM disk. You will need a license
obviously for Windows XP. If you don't care to save anything on the drive
then who cares what the password is, it doesn't matter. Just install a
clean XP and it will handle the formatting....

 

[neil]

You need to go into the bios and set the boot device as the floppy drive
then it should boot using your floppy disk. If the filing system is NTFS on
the hard drive then you should still be able to delete the partition and
create a new one. If you are going to use XP then the XP CD contains all the
utilities you need within the setup routine.

Neil

 

[winz3_16]

Ok I know this was posted quite a while back, however there is an easier
way of "removing" the password for any windows xp home and pro pc. If
and its a fairly large if, the owner hasn't booted into safe mode and
set a ADMIN password.

Steps:
1 Boot into safe mode
2 Open Control Panel
3 Open User Accounts
4 Create a new user
5 Delete the current user (not the one you just created)
6 If You elect to not create a new user and/or delete the current user.
There is a place in the user settings that allows you to "remove the
current password"