Need help with article 307545

[Guest]

Hi
I'm using Windows XP Professional (Upgrade from 98): I was getting the
....\System file missing error so I followed the instructions in article
307545 to try and rectify the problem. Only I've now created a new problem.
Hopefully someone out there can help!

Here is a little background, (before the cpu broke) when we would first log
onto the computer it had only 2 user accounts and as far as I know (and my
husband swears) there is no administrator password.
I got this same error message a week ago but I couldn't find my cd so I took
it to a repair shop to get fixed. They fixed it, but after I powered it down
and tried to power up again I got the same error message.

I borrowed a friends disk to do the fix rather than paying for it again: So
while following the article instructions, the first time, my computer
neglected to ask me for an administrator password. I took this to mean that
there wasn’t an administrator set up on the computer. After I completed the
instructions the computer re-booted, when it booted up to the log-in screen
the only user button was for the administrator. The 2 user accounts that had
been there previously are no longer there.

I tried clicking the arrow to see if the password was blank, and it just
gives me the message asking if I forgot my password. I've also tried both
passwords from the user accounts that were previously there. None worked. So
I had the great idea to go back to the setup mode and copy the files in the
tmp folder (the original files) back, but after selecting the installation it
now asks me for an administrator password.

My husband swears he never set up an administrator account or password.

I also tried to find help on what if you forget your administrator password
and it says I'm out of luck and will have to re-install the OS and all
programs.

So here are my questions:

Is it possible that the person who fixed my computer was able to set an
administrator password, because none was previously set?

How come my user accounts were there after the repair man fixed it and now
they are not? (I'm assuming it's because he knew what he was doing)

If I do the re-install, because I can't figure out the password, do I lose
all of our stuff? (I'm assuming that if we lose all programs we loose all
files).

Is there anything I can do to get it to go back to the other user accounts?

In desperate need of any help - thanks

 

[Ron Badour]

Since you paid to have it fixed and it wasn't, why didn't you take the
computer back to the shop? Since you have now fooled with it, I suspect
they will not honor a request for free work but you can try. At least ask
them if they set an administrator password and, if so, what it is. If worse
comes to worse, you can always slave up the hard drive in another
functioning XP computer and use it to extract your needed data.

 

[Guest]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the response. I assumed that since I brought it home and it
worked when I powered up the first time that it wouldn’t be considered still
broken. When I spoke to the repair guy he said if the cpu did it again he
would need to reformat the hard drive and that would cost more than I could
afford. I followed the directions exactly, I just don’t understand how I
muffed it up.

The computer I’m talking about is a laptop, am I able to take the hard drive
out and use it on another cpu?

I’m assuming it would ruin the laptop but if it meant I could still get my
data then I’d be willing.

I’m hoping that all the data is still there, I thought maybe since it
deleted our accounts it also deleted our data.

One more question: Why didn’t it ask for an administrator password the first
time?

Thanks for the help

 

[Ron Badour]

The laptop creates a problem since some are near impossible to work on
(except by specialists) when there are hardware issues. I (and most of
my MVP buddies) will not touch a laptop hardware problem or try a solution
that involves hardware (like the one I proposed).

Did you ask the repair guy about the admin password? Why it asks now and
not before is probably due to whatever system glitches you had--it is hard
to guess at these things long distance.

The fact that the user accounts are not showing does not mean the data is
gone. Unless you overwrite the data, it will remain on the hard drive--even
formatting the partition does not remove it although the reinstallation of
the system may. There is software available (although some is a little
pricey) that will retrieve files that have not been overwritten.