Password Problem

[Jim]

My son has a HP notebook that has WindowsXP home edition
and he have never used a password to logon to windows.
Now all of a sudden it is asking for a password when it
boots into windows. I tried all of the trouble shooting
such as leaving it blank, safe mode, etc. Nothing worked.
Can anyone explain how this could happen? HP support
said I would have to use my recovery disk which would
wipe out all of my data.

My question is can I install WindowsXP Pro over WindowsXP
Home without losing all of my files and other
applications? When I boot to the CD it says that "all
files, subfolders, user accounts, applications, security
and desktop settings for that Windows installation will
be deleted. The MY Documents folder may also be
deleted." Does this mean if I have MS Word - those files
would be deleted? Alot of my files are in My Documents
even though they may be from other applications.

I would appreciate anyones help!
Thanks

 

[Christian Heckelmann]

Reset Windows Passwords or modify registry from Linux

Use the Knoppicilin cd from c't magazin. Mount the appropriate
partition. (mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1) Save it. (partimage) "cd
/mnt/hda1/Windows/system32/config" (for Win XP. For Win NT and 2000
replace Windows with WINNT) If filesystem is FAT32 you can modify the
registry data directly with chntpw (make a backup first), with NTFS you
copy the registry files SAM, SECURITY, and system with "cp SAM SECURITY
system /ramdisk" to the ramdisk and change to it. With "chntpw -i SAM
SECURITY system" the tool starts interactively. Syskey should not be
deactivated in Modus 1 (Syskey saves its additional key free
accessible.) Deactivation is only necessary if the key is secured with
an additional passphrase or if the key is external i.e. on a floppy. Now
the user has to be choosen who will get a new passwd. Best is
administrator. Administrator usually can do all other tasks thereafter
under windows. Now the new password has to be choosen. Now the write
access for the NTFS partition has to be enabled, "mount -o remount,rw
/mnt/hda1". The original registry files should be saved (again before
copying back the modified ones. Afterwards the NTFS partition should be
umounted and checked with "ntfsfix /dev/hda1".

Another nice feature of chntpw is the simple registry editor. With it
problems during broken programs during start up (autostart) can be
fixed. With "chntpw -e software"the editor is started with the registry
file software. The navigation is done as usually in a linux
filesystem(incl. autocompletion). Automatical start up is done (next to
others see c't 9/03) at
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run**".
With q all changes will be saved. For all the other procedures on NTFS
please see above.

 

[Malke]

My son has a HP notebook that has WindowsXP home edition
and he have never used a password to logon to windows.
Now all of a sudden it is asking for a password when it
boots into windows. I tried all of the trouble shooting
such as leaving it blank, safe mode, etc. Nothing worked.
Can anyone explain how this could happen? HP support
said I would have to use my recovery disk which would
wipe out all of my data.

My question is can I install WindowsXP Pro over WindowsXP
Home without losing all of my files and other
applications? When I boot to the CD it says that "all
files, subfolders, user accounts, applications, security
and desktop settings for that Windows installation will
be deleted. The MY Documents folder may also be
deleted." Does this mean if I have MS Word - those files
would be deleted? Alot of my files are in My Documents
even though they may be from other applications.

I would appreciate anyones help!
Thanks

I don't know how it happened because I wasn't there. It is certainly
unusual, and I'd suspect that someone "got to" the laptop or it has
been hacked. To change the password, use the ntpasswd program from this
site: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/. This will allow you to
change the password - changing it to blank is the best idea from there.
If that looks too hard, then take the machine to a good local computer
shop and 1) have them rescue the data - and now you know why backups
are such A Good Idea; 2) get into the notebook for you. Once you get
into the laptop, if it looks compromised, then back up the data, format
the drive, and reinstall Windows. Then reinstall programs from cd and
restore data from the backups you made. (ps. I love Knoppix, but using
it directly is far simpler than the method suggested by Mr. Heckelmann
in his post, and I also think it will be a tad too complicated for you
- no offense meant.)

Malke

 

[Mike j]

i'm not sure if this applies in your case but when i set
up a file sgaring folder and share printer it also asks
for a password. the computer thinks you tried to set up a
network. i delted the file sharing and the password
request went away. vgl2u