No administrator PW, and NO BOOT!

[Paul]

Ugh... long story, but today I fiddled with my boot.ini
file (had 2 XP operating systems at OS choice screen) in
XP Home and now I'm locked out of my computer. (no boot) I
get the error message: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll is
missing or corrupt. No boot options work (safe mode, etc)

Ok, no problem I think, I'll just repair it in the XP
recovery console. It asks me for an administrator
password -- but I have PW protection disabled for my
administrator account,(and last one I used didn't let me
in) so I have no clue what to do to get in, short of
trying every password that I've ever used.

Please help, this is FRUSTRATING!

Thanks kindly, in advance!

 

[Jim Macklin]

Have you used the TAB key to bypass the password field and
then press enter?


message | Ugh... long story, but today I fiddled with my boot.ini
| file (had 2 XP operating systems at OS choice screen) in
| XP Home and now I'm locked out of my computer. (no boot) I
| get the error message: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll is
| missing or corrupt. No boot options work (safe mode, etc)
|
| Ok, no problem I think, I'll just repair it in the XP
| recovery console. It asks me for an administrator
| password -- but I have PW protection disabled for my
| administrator account,(and last one I used didn't let me
| in) so I have no clue what to do to get in, short of
| trying every password that I've ever used.
|
| Please help, this is FRUSTRATING!
|
| Thanks kindly, in advance!
|

 

[Menno Hershberger]

Don't think that's going to work in the recovery console. If his drive is
formatted in FAT 32 (unlikely) then he could use a Windows 98 startup
disk and go in and edit his boot.ini. On my computer there's a BOOT.BAK.
If he has that he could probably delete boot.ini and rename that one.


#[email protected]:

 

[Paul]

No, I haven't tried that, but I will thanks! I don't
understand why the console is asking for a PW when I don't
even have one in place. In the past I recall I could just
hit 'enter' when prompted for PW and it would work.

I'm on another computer now, but I'll try your tab method.

Thanks again!

 

[Harry Ohrn]

You might try a Repair Install. Check for How To Run a Repair Installation
here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

 

[Guest]

Thanks Harry for the reply, and the tools provided on your
page!

Can you please be more specific when you say to try a
repair install. As I stated, I'm locked out due to a
phantom admin password that doesn't exist, and I'm using
an XP Home upgrade CD to repair an OEM system -- thus when
I go the 'setup' route, it doesn't detect a previous
version of windows to 'repair'... only to setup,
partition, etc.

Thanks again..

-----Original Message-----
You might try a Repair Install. Check for How To Run a Repair Installation
here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp

Ugh... long story, but today I fiddled with my boot.ini
file (had 2 XP operating systems at OS choice screen) in
XP Home and now I'm locked out of my computer. (no boot) I
get the error message: <windows root>\system32\hal.dll is
missing or corrupt. No boot options work (safe mode, etc)

Ok, no problem I think, I'll just repair it in the XP
recovery console. It asks me for an administrator
password -- but I have PW protection disabled for my
administrator account,(and last one I used didn't let me
in) so I have no clue what to do to get in, short of
trying every password that I've ever used.

Please help, this is FRUSTRATING!

Thanks kindly, in advance!

.