Unable to unlock set up - password unknown

[Greg Mitchell]

My friend let his anti-virus software expire and he picked up a number of
viruses and the system administrator was hi-jacked. He has XP Home Media
Edition SP2. The control panel was missing and I couldn’t install/remove
programs etc. I removed all the viruses and did a clean XP install, updated
McAfee and Windows and scanned for viruses to make sure it was clean. I was
able to get administrative control of the computer again and everything
looked good. But in the set up menu it says the system is locked out and when
I put the password in that I created for the admin. account it says it's the
wrong password. This was happening prior to me putting an admin. password in
it. I removed my password and I ran the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
boot disk from www.home.eunet.no to reset it and tried again - same thing
wrong password. So I ran the password reset program again and it said the
password was blank. But it is still locked out. I am afraid whatever
hi-jacked it will be able to do it again do to this. Any help would be
greatly appreciated, thanks.

Greg Mitchell

 

[Malke]

My friend let his anti-virus software expire and he picked up a number of
viruses and the system administrator was hi-jacked. He has XP Home Media
Edition SP2. The control panel was missing and I couldn’t install/remove
programs etc. I removed all the viruses and did a clean XP install, updated
McAfee and Windows and scanned for viruses to make sure it was clean. I was
able to get administrative control of the computer again and everything
looked good. But in the set up menu it says the system is locked out and when
I put the password in that I created for the admin. account it says it's the
wrong password. This was happening prior to me putting an admin. password in
it. I removed my password and I ran the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
boot disk from www.home.eunet.no to reset it and tried again - same thing
wrong password. So I ran the password reset program again and it said the
password was blank. But it is still locked out. I am afraid whatever
hi-jacked it will be able to do it again do to this. Any help would be
greatly appreciated, thanks.

Your friend should back up any data that he needs and wipe the drive,
clean-install Windows. There's no way you or he can be sure a system
that badly compromised is clean.

I would use Knoppix to retrieve the data (see below) and make sure to
scan it with a current version antivirus using updated definitions (scan
from Windows, naturally) before copying the data back onto the clean
install.

You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. If you want to burn CD/DVDs, use the K3b program.

http://www.knoppix.net

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


Malke

 

[Greg Mitchell]

Thank you Malke, I will try that as soon as I can.