Have Laptop with XP on it but do not know the password.

[Guest]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy drive.

 

[John Q. Smith]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy
drive.

format c:

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy drive.

How to Log On to Windows XP If You Forget Your Password or Your
Password Expires
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q321305

Failing that, Linux-based password cracking utilities abound on the
Internet, freely available to anyone who can use Google.

However, with second-hand computers, especially if acquired from
strangers but perhaps even if acquired from a family member, your
friend's wisest course of action would probably be to format the hard
drives and start fresh. He wouldn't want to get in trouble because the
original owner may have filled the hard drive with kiddie porn, or have
problems because the original owner downloaded/installed viruses or
other malware.

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)


--

Bruce Chambers

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy drive.

In my view, not having the password doesn't matter. If I acquired a
used computer (even from a relative), the first thing I would do with
it would be to reinstall the operating system cleanly. You have no
idea how the computer has been maintained, what has been installed
incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses and spyware there may be,
etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody else's mistakes and
problems, possibility of kiddie porn, etc., and I wouldn't recommend
that anyone else do either.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not

have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy drive.

Format and Re-install.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[HeyBub]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died.
Do not have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have
a floppy drive.

There are password finders, some run from a floppy. You can get a USB floppy
drive for, oh, $30.

Once that is done, I would entrust the machine to a circumspect member of
the family, or better yet, an attorney, to scan the machine looking for a)
anything the family should NOT see and b) anything the family SHOULD see
(i.e., a will or last wishes).

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy
drive.

There are two places where passwords can be found, one at system boot and
the other for Windows logon.

If the system boot password is enabled, you need to contact the
manufacturer. You may need to send it to an authorized center to have the
password removed; this is a very basic anti-theft security feature. You
may need to be able to prove that you have legitimately come into possession
of the system.

If it's just the XP password, this is much easier.

If it's XP Home, press F8 at boot to start in Safe Mode and log in as
Administrator which by default has no password. Go to Control Panel,
Users, and remove the passwords from other accounts.

For XP Pro you can try the same thing, but be aware that if encryption was
invoked, removing the password will permanently block decryption.

You can also get password reset functions on a number of Linux-based boot
CDs.

Finally, it's otherwise probably the best plan to simply wipe the drive and
re-install cleanly, unless the owner needs access to the data.

HTH
-pk

 

[Arkadiusz 'Black Fox' Artyszuk]

Help. A friend has received a laptop from a relative that has died. Do not
have the password. What do we do????? The laptop does not have a floppy drive.

If you have access to BIOS settings change startup setting to CD/DVD and
use some Linux distribution for clearing admin's password
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html