No idea what the Administrator password is and now it is asking?

[Guest]

Hi,

Can anyone help or point in the right direction please?

Have a PC which had a load of virus's on it. Have since installed virus
software and cleaned the hard drive.

I do now have a problem though. Whenever I boot up it asks for the
Administartor password. I don't know it, have never set it, never even seen
this prompt before my virus issues.

Now I can only boot in safe mode. If I transmit a blank password it just
logs me off again.

Running XP Home.

Any ideas?
Cheers,
Sean

 

[Malke]

Hi,

Can anyone help or point in the right direction please?

Have a PC which had a load of virus's on it. Have since installed virus
software and cleaned the hard drive.

I do now have a problem though. Whenever I boot up it asks for the
Administartor password. I don't know it, have never set it, never even seen
this prompt before my virus issues.

Now I can only boot in safe mode. If I transmit a blank password it just
logs me off again.

Running XP Home.

There is no way for me to know what was damaged by the "load of
viruses". To deal with the password issue:

If you have forgotten your password, if you have another user account
with administrative privileges you can log into that account and change
your original user account's password from the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel. If you don't have another account like this set up or
don't have the password to it, you'll need to log into the built-in
Administrator account. In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do
this by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up.
This will get you to the right menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key;
the mouse will not work here. Once in Safe Mode, you will see the
normally hidden Administrator account. The default password is a blank.

If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or
have Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the
built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Then go to the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and set passwords
that you will remember and make other desired changes.

If this doesn't work for you, then there is a high probability that the
"load of viruses" damaged the operating system. Without seeing the
machine or knowing with what it was infected, I can't tell you what to
do for sure but the simplest solution might be to try a Repair Install
of Windows and, if that doesn't solve the issue, do a Clean Install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand


Malke

 

[Guest]

Thanks, will give it a go.

There is no way for me to know what was damaged by the "load of
viruses". To deal with the password issue:

If you have forgotten your password, if you have another user account
with administrative privileges you can log into that account and change
your original user account's password from the User Accounts applet in
Control Panel. If you don't have another account like this set up or
don't have the password to it, you'll need to log into the built-in
Administrator account. In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do
this by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up.
This will get you to the right menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key;
the mouse will not work here. Once in Safe Mode, you will see the
normally hidden Administrator account. The default password is a blank.

If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or
have Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the
built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Then go to the User Accounts applet in Control Panel and set passwords
that you will remember and make other desired changes.

If this doesn't work for you, then there is a high probability that the
"load of viruses" damaged the operating system. Without seeing the
machine or knowing with what it was infected, I can't tell you what to
do for sure but the simplest solution might be to try a Repair Install
of Windows and, if that doesn't solve the issue, do a Clean Install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User