As a followup to my own post, I downloaded a more current iso file and
burned another cd. I was finally able to reset my passwords with this
cd. The on screen instructions still seem to be a little more cryptic
than they need to be, but I managed it this time.
To easily help other people, I have written the following as a signature. Ctrl-I
and I have a choice of signatures. Here is the one I should have sent you:
To reset your computer so that only you may use it and you are the undisputed
Administrator.
Well you should use Acronis to assist you to retain your Administrator powers.
First get Acronis, it is available on many different places. Apparently version
7.0 is free, the others 8 and 9 are tests only. I stand to be corrected on that
as I am running 9 and it is a paid version.
Now that you have that and you have it installed, you will put a CD into the
drive and make a Bootable CD by using the icon shaped as a lifebelt.
Then you will make an Image of your C drive as an absolute minimum. You have a
chance of verifying that image - do that, just to make sure.
Lock away your boot disk and your DVD's or whatever you wrote the image to -
make sure that only you can get at them.
When and if in trouble:
Go to Bios to change the boot order so the boot will start from the CD.
Now is the time to get the Boot disk out of the hidy hole and also your Image.
Boot with CD and it explains itself. It gives you the chance to restore your
chosen drive which generally will be C:
I have just done so and I now have another good version of C drive.
Unfortunately mine did give an error message.
Is was as follows: AVG Anti Virus COM error caught 80004002, No such interface
support.
Well it was easy - I still had the downloaded version of the free AVG - used
that to setup AVG again and downloaded the Updates and we are right.
Now to avoid trouble you need to get a strong password. My present dog is name
ELSA and that is not too good to make a password of but it is easy to remember
and that is important. Computers cannot remember letters so we have helped them
along by replacing letters with numbers. A= 65 (decimal) and up one for each of
the letters in the alphabet. Therefore ELSA is = 69768365 - now that is a bit
more respectable and look like a password - too easy for someone knowing how
much you think of your dog. There are 4 letter equating to four double digit
numbers.
Think of something - my British Army number= 14195068. We take the first four
numbers of that and add that one number at a time to the password - 69 therefore
is 70 - 76 comes out at 80, 83=84 65=74 having added 01040109 to the lot.
Your total password therefore is 70808474- I guarantee that will take a bit of
working out.
You probably will forget the password but you can easily work it out if you have
done something sensible.
Make sure you computer comes up and asks for a password using Ctrl,Alt,Del
And here is another just for fun
To avoid grizzlies, the Alaska Department of Fish & Game
advises hikers to wear noisy little bells on clothes and carry pepper spray,
also watch for signs of activity:
Black bear scat is smaller and contains berries; grizzly scat has little bells
in it and smells like pepper.
And my usual
Borge in sunny Perth, Australia
