Question about reformatting

[Guest]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor reformat
his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he claims he has never
set up an administrative password, nor has he been prompted to enter one in
order to log onto Windows. When I am in the process of reformatting, I am
asked for the administrative password in the Recovery Console. I thought that
leaving it blank, if there was no administrative password set, that it would
accept it and move on. It is telling me that the password is invalid. What
gives? Is there any way around this? Is there any way to reformat without
having to enter the password? Thanks for your help!!

 

[Guest]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor reformat
his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he claims he has never
set up an administrative password, nor has he been prompted to enter one in
order to log onto Windows. When I am in the process of reformatting, I am
asked for the administrative password in the Recovery Console. I thought that
leaving it blank, if there was no administrative password set, that it would
accept it and move on. It is telling me that the password is invalid. What
gives? Is there any way around this? Is there any way to reformat without
having to enter the password? Thanks for your help!!

 

[Alias]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor reformat
his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he claims he has never
set up an administrative password, nor has he been prompted to enter one in
order to log onto Windows. When I am in the process of reformatting, I am
asked for the administrative password in the Recovery Console. I thought that
leaving it blank, if there was no administrative password set, that it would
accept it and move on. It is telling me that the password is invalid. What
gives? Is there any way around this? Is there any way to reformat without
having to enter the password? Thanks for your help!!

Yeah, use the floppies from the Hard Drive manufacturer's web site which
will format and partition the drive. Once you're done, set the BIOS to
boot from CD, stick XP in the CDROM, exit and save the BIOS and install XP.

 

[Guest]

Justin,

Why are you in the recovery console? That is not where you go reformat.
When the install begins XP will look for previously installed versions of
Windows. When it finds your current install you'll need to delete that
partition
then create a new one (partition) and format it. Please note that once you
delete the partition ALL files will be lost.

JFD

 

[Malke]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor
reformat his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he
claims he has never set up an administrative password, nor has he been
prompted to enter one in order to log onto Windows. When I am in the
process of reformatting, I am asked for the administrative password in
the Recovery Console. I thought that leaving it blank, if there was no
administrative password set, that it would accept it and move on. It
is telling me that the password is invalid. What gives? Is there any
way around this? Is there any way to reformat without having to enter
the password? Thanks for your help!!

If the OP never set up an administrative password, he probably has XP
Home Edition. From your description of what you are doing, you are in
the wrong place to reinstall Windows. You are in the Recovery Console
which is not where you want to be so it doesn't matter about the
password. See these links for instructions how to reinstall XP:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install

As a friendly tip, when helping friends with technical issues make sure
you really know what you are doing. I'm not saying this to hurt your
feelings but if you didn't know not to press R for Recovery Console to
reinstall Windows, are you sure your neighbor shouldn't just take the
machine to a local shop instead?

Malke

 

[Guest]

This is the link I followed for instructions on how to reformat.

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/index.html#reinstallxp

Are you all saying that this website is wrong?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor
reformat his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he
claims he has never set up an administrative password, nor has he
been prompted to enter one in order to log onto Windows. When I am in
the process of reformatting, I am asked for the administrative
password in the Recovery Console. I thought that leaving it blank, if
there was no administrative password set, that it would accept it and
move on. It is telling me that the password is invalid. What gives?
Is there any way around this? Is there any way to reformat without
having to enter the password? Thanks for your help!!

You're doing it wrong. You shouldn't be in the recovery console at all, and
you should never be asked for a password.

You can't format the Windows drive from within Windows, since that would
leave Windows without a leg to stand on.

Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to
accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the
existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

 

[Plato]

set up an administrative password, nor has he been prompted to enter one in
order to log onto Windows. When I am in the process of reformatting, I am

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

 

[Ron Sommer]

The site says Windows setup screen.
It doesn't say Recovery Console.
The first R is for the Recovery Console.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hey! I have a question about reformatting. I am helping a neighbor reformat
his hard drive and reinstall windows. The problem is, he claims he has never
set up an administrative password, nor has he been prompted to enter one in
order to log onto Windows. When I am in the process of reformatting, I am
asked for the administrative password in the Recovery Console. I thought that
leaving it blank, if there was no administrative password set, that it would
accept it and move on. It is telling me that the password is invalid. What
gives? Is there any way around this? Is there any way to reformat without
having to enter the password? Thanks for your help!!

No offense, but perhaps your neighbor should find someone who's a bit
more experienced to assist him.

One doesn't use the Recovery Console to format the hard drive; one
simply boots from the WinXP Installation CD.

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of boot
devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Yeah, use the floppies from the Hard Drive manufacturer's web site which
will format and partition the drive. Once you're done, set the BIOS to
boot from CD, stick XP in the CDROM, exit and save the BIOS and install XP.

Why bother with floppies? All legitimate WinXP installation CDs are
bootable.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

This is the link I followed for instructions on how to reformat.

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/index.html#reinstallxp

Are you all saying that this website is wrong?

Whomever wrote the instructions on that site certainly seems to like
making people do everything the hard way. Ignore it.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH