HELP: Fresh install requires passwords but none set...

[Randell D.]

(Sorry for the duplicate post to security_admin group)

Folks,
This is not easy... I'm in Canada, and my mate with the Windows XP Home
Edition is in England... I've been a dab hand over the years at earlier
Windows operating systems so he's looking to me for help... The thing is,
I'm content with Windows Me and thus am not yet familiar with XP to steer
him through his problem.

The situation?
When he first installed XP months (a year?) ago he was amazed with it - by
and large things were fine until about a month ago his PC started suffering
what I think is either virus related, or failing hardware... (It would take
ages to boot and sometimes it would freeze altogether) He decided to do a
re-install...

He has managed to boot from CD and was advised that his older (troublesome)
XP installation was on the C drive - He chose to delete it but the install
routine advised otherwise (it thought he wanted a dual boot I guess). He
took the recommended option of installing it on to his D drive.

When installed on his D drive, things worked fine but he wanted to delete
his older installation on the C drive - He tried formating the drive but he
was not alloewd to do this - I guess this is probably because a small amount
of the installation was written to the C drive (boot manager or something?)
while the rest was written to the D drive.

Not content with this, we agreed that he would re-install, this time going
against the recommended option and installing Windows XP on the C drive, and
taking the option to delete the contents of the C drive...

He did this - He tells me the C drive 'disappeared' during the install
routine, before it was re-created (I gather it was either being fdisk'd or
formated or something).

The install continued as per normal he says... and when it finished, he was
presented with a login screen for user OWNER and user GUEST. Both require
passwords which he has never set... We've also tried safe mode with F8
during boot but that brings us to Administrator and Guest, again, both
requireing passwords...and thus, therefore is my (or his... or our) problem.

I believe his machine is booting from the C drive and what we need to do is
1) Log him in
2) Re-format his D drive which has a failed installation.

When he attempts to log on (with or without a password) he gets the message
"The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted."

Can anybody help? Again... as a reminder, its specifically XP Home Edition
that we're talking about... He has the original CD/license/whatever that
came in the box when he bought it. I've read some of the Microsoft KB
notes, including
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/howto/gettingstarted/guide/newinstallation.asp
(Install: New Installation) but that doesn't help me...


Replies please... via the newsgroup, so everyone can learn...
Thanks,
Randell D.

 

[Sixpaik]

Hi,

If there are no information that needs to be retrived
from the hard drive, I would suggest formating the hard
drive and install XP home edition. I'm assuming your
friend has all the required operating systems.

First thing he needs to do is acquire Windows 98 Second
edition startup disk.(Local computer store should be able
to help in acquiring them)

Second, boot the pc with the startup disk (Note: He
might have to change boot order in the Bios to boot from
floppy, when pc starts press [Del], [F2], or [F12] depend
on the pc.) and when prompted for selection from the
Windows 98 start menu, select without CD-Rom driver
option and press [Enter].
from the A:> prompt, type in "Format C:" and [Enter] and
follow the screen prompts. Perform same for D drive.

Reset the Bios to boot from CD, insert Win XP Home CD in
the CD Drive, start PC and follow screen prompts.

That should do it, hope this helps.

Sixpaik

 

[Randell D.]

Hi,

If there are no information that needs to be retrived
from the hard drive, I would suggest formating the hard
drive and install XP home edition. I'm assuming your
friend has all the required operating systems.

First thing he needs to do is acquire Windows 98 Second
edition startup disk.(Local computer store should be able
to help in acquiring them)

Second, boot the pc with the startup disk (Note: He
might have to change boot order in the Bios to boot from
floppy, when pc starts press [Del], [F2], or [F12] depend
on the pc.) and when prompted for selection from the
Windows 98 start menu, select without CD-Rom driver
option and press [Enter].
from the A:> prompt, type in "Format C:" and [Enter] and
follow the screen prompts. Perform same for D drive.

Reset the Bios to boot from CD, insert Win XP Home CD in
the CD Drive, start PC and follow screen prompts.

That should do it, hope this helps.

Sixpaik

Yeah... I had thought of that... but he's thrown away his Windows98 CD's...
and he can't even get any at work because its some organisation that
predominently employs 'brethern' that are part of some religon who don't use
modern toys (my friend is not part of their group, he's just someone who has
a skillset that their 'group' lack)... We're not talking Hamish, they drive
cars and use electricity and are I believe nice people(though stereo's, cell
phones, credit-cards and computers and such are also a big no-no - you
wouldn't believe the hassle it was for them to get a photo-copier)...
Anyway... this means he can't even borrow a Windows CD from them... I might
have to post him a CD or diskette if we can't find another solution...

Thanks though...
randell d.