Major Login problem Someone please give me a suggestion

[Brian Carpenter]

After the last shut down of my computer the other day, whenever I turn on
the computer, it no longer logs me into Windows XP Home. It comes to the
welcome screen, but it does not display any users to log into. I press the
CTRL+ALT+DEL twice to get the log in window, but I still cannot login as a
user, it says that the passwords are bad, I cannot even login as
administrator.

When I go to safe mode, the same situation exists, whether I am trying to
log in just safe mode, or with a command prompt., There are no log in's
available and when I press the CTRL+ALT+DEL twice to get the login window,
it will not recognize any of my login's.

I have attempted to use the setup repair console, but it asks for a
Administrator login password, and since I have never set a password for the
administrator, I simply press enter on the blank password, and it refuses to
let me into the repair console.

My next option was to run setup and repair the current installation, but
after doing this, I was faced with the same situation described above. I am
looking at a blank wall.

Last night I installed a fresh new copy of the OS, and it worked, to allow
me into the computer and have access to the hard drive and everything, but
there is nothing installed on the system or registered.

Did I miss something in my attempt to restore my original operating system
to functionality? is there something that I can reset to allow the original
OS to login? When I turn on the computer now, it allows me to choose between
the OS's, the original, which does not let me login, and the new OS which is
devoid of any of my programs.

TIA

Brian

 

[GTS]

You might take a look at "How to recover from a corrupted registry that
prevents Windows XP from starting" -
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

Also, How to start the System Restore tool at a command prompt in Windows
XP -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304449

The situation you describe is, in my experience, most often an indication of
serious registry corruption and may not be recoverable. It would be
advisable to run chkdsk. Damage of this magnitude, if the computer was
malware clean and running well, is sometimes the result of bad sectors
impacting core system files.
..--

 

[Brian Carpenter]

Thanks I will check this information out,

Everything was running fine, I am certain it was free of any malicious
content since I regularly run scanning programs to clean spy/mal ware from
my computer and my virus protection is always up to date.

thanks for the info, I hope it helps

Brian

 

[Brian Carpenter]

These procedures failed to work. There are no repair files or system restore
points available from before the time this incident occurred. Apparently
when I tried to repair the OS installation through Setup from the CD-ROM, it
wiped out any previous restore points. There is one option that I may have
available to me, I have a deleted file recovery tool, but if they have been
overwritten, then I guess I am just SOL??????

Any further advice before I give up would be appreciated.

TIA

Brian

 

[Shenan Stanley]

After the last shut down of my computer the other day, whenever I
turn on the computer, it no longer logs me into Windows XP Home. It
comes to the welcome screen, but it does not display any users to log
into. I press the CTRL+ALT+DEL twice to get the log in window, but I
still cannot login as a user, it says that the passwords are bad, I
cannot even login as administrator.

When I go to safe mode, the same situation exists, whether I am
trying to log in just safe mode, or with a command prompt., There are
no log in's available and when I press the CTRL+ALT+DEL twice to get
the login window, it will not recognize any of my login's.

I have attempted to use the setup repair console, but it asks for a
Administrator login password, and since I have never set a password
for the administrator, I simply press enter on the blank password,
and it refuses to let me into the repair console.

My next option was to run setup and repair the current installation,
but after doing this, I was faced with the same situation described
above. I am looking at a blank wall.

Last night I installed a fresh new copy of the OS, and it worked, to
allow me into the computer and have access to the hard drive and
everything, but there is nothing installed on the system or
registered.
Did I miss something in my attempt to restore my original operating
system to functionality? is there something that I can reset to allow
the original OS to login? When I turn on the computer now, it allows
me to choose between the OS's, the original, which does not let me
login, and the new OS which is devoid of any of my programs.

If you hadn't attempted a repair installation so early, perhaps these would
have helped:

Hack your password:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Another:
http://www.thomasmathiesen.com/itak/html/software.html

Maybe reset your administrator password so you could have logged on again.

Now when you did the new install, that is also called a parallel install, of
course there was nothing installed. You installed a fresh copy of the OS.
You would have to take ownership of files/folders you want and reinstall
applications you use.

 

[GTS]

Sorry, but I don't see any possibility of repairing the prior Windows
installation at this point. You're right, in retrospect, re. the repair
install removing prior RPs. Even if you could recover all of those files I
doubt very much they would work in light of the repair installation run.
You may have jumped the gun a little with the Repair reinstallation, but
it's quite possible it might not have been salvageable. At least your data
files should all be there. You might give some thought to doing regular
full system backups. It's the best last resort when all else fails.
--

These procedures failed to work. There are no repair files or system
restore points available from before the time this incident occurred.
Apparently when I tried to repair the OS installation through Setup from
the CD-ROM, it wiped out any previous restore points. There is one option
that I may have available to me, I have a deleted file recovery tool, but
if they have been overwritten, then I guess I am just SOL??????

Any further advice before I give up would be appreciated.

TIA

Brian

[snip]

 

[Guest]

Im having the exact same problem right now. The computer froze and upon reset
have the same symptoms you described. I cannot get into recovery console
because it is asking for an administrative password, and there was not one
set when I did a reinstall last summer because of the same exact problem.
What should i do? I would rather not install a second operating system and
take ownership of files to backup and then do a clean install because it's
just over 6 months since i last did that. What is going on? This problem
obviously isnt unique.