Help needed: accessing other users

[triumphfancanada]

hi...
I probably made a small problem even larger tonight. I have Windows XP
pro. Today I tried to turn on the PC and I was not allowed to log in to

Windows. I received the message "NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl+Alt+Del
to restart". I researched this a bit at work, and got a step-by-step
instruction, as well as a file I saved to a disk, which was supposed to

boot through and repair the problem and get me in to windows.


I got home tonight, and tried the disk, and it treated the disk as a
'non system disk' or whatever, and would not boot off of it. So I tried

to use my XP disk and repair the problem but it prompted me for an
"administrator password", of which I had no idea what it was. So I just

installed windows to a new folder in my existing C drive. It took half
an hour, and then finally allowed me to get in to windows.


Everything was saved in my C and D drives (it was partioned) and its
all good. But the problem is that now I log in using a new user
setting, and my old users to log in are not on the initial log-in page.

I can still see them under "C:/documents and settings" and everything
is still there. There are 2 old users there. One I can access, but the
other I cannot.


So my question is two-fold: (A) Is there anyway I can 'delete' this new

installation of windows and go back to my old windows - and not lose
anything? And would the initial problem be fixed and therefore I don't
have to do anything before i 'delete' the new installation? And what
would the step-by-step requirements be for me to do all this??


Or, (B) If I can't (or shouldn't) delete the new installation, how can
I log in as my old user name, which still obviously exists in the C
drive? I need to access those files!!


Thanks very much for your help. Best bet is to post your reply right
now, or email is okay at triumphfancanada AT rogers DOT com


Thanks!!
Dave

 

[Patrick Keenan]

hi...
I probably made a small problem even larger tonight. I have Windows XP
pro. Today I tried to turn on the PC and I was not allowed to log in to

Windows. I received the message "NTLDR is missing, press Ctrl+Alt+Del
to restart".

Very often the reason for this message is a diskette forgotten in the floppy
drive.

I researched this a bit at work, and got a step-by-step
instruction, as well as a file I saved to a disk, which was supposed to

boot through and repair the problem and get me in to windows.


I got home tonight, and tried the disk, and it treated the disk as a
'non system disk' or whatever, and would not boot off of it.

not unless it's a bootable disk, right. And few floppies have NTFS access
built in.

So I tried

to use my XP disk and repair the problem but it prompted me for an
"administrator password", of which I had no idea what it was.

Did you try a blank password?

So I just

installed windows to a new folder in my existing C drive. It took half
an hour, and then finally allowed me to get in to windows.


Everything was saved in my C and D drives (it was partioned) and its
all good. But the problem is that now I log in using a new user
setting, and my old users to log in are not on the initial log-in page.

Yes, this is normal. The new registry knows nothing of the old one.

I can still see them under "C:/documents and settings" and everything
is still there. There are 2 old users there. One I can access, but the
other I cannot.

You'll need to take ownership of the folder if you want access to the files.

If the account invoked encryption, you must log in to that account, or
import the saved encryption keys. If you can't do either of these the data
can be considered gone.

So my question is two-fold: (A) Is there anyway I can 'delete' this new

installation of windows and go back to my old windows - and not lose
anything? And would the initial problem be fixed and therefore I don't
have to do anything before i 'delete' the new installation? And what
would the step-by-step requirements be for me to do all this??


Or, (B) If I can't (or shouldn't) delete the new installation, how can
I log in as my old user name, which still obviously exists in the C
drive? I need to access those files!!

Simply take ownership of the folders and copy the files. But if you
encrypted them, and didn't save or can't find the keys, you have a problem.

Look in Help and Support for Take Ownership.

HTH
-pk