XP won't start

[Bob Lavelle]

My daughter has had automatic logon as the only user of her
computer with no password. When she turned it on yesterday
the welcome screen asked for a password. Entering with a
blank gives the message "Domain ... not available." Same
thing happens in the Log On window both using her user name
with blank password and Administrator with blank password
(she never set a password for either. Safe Mode asks for a
password and does not accept blank. Windows Recovery Console
also does not accept blank password. Could something have
set passwords? Can she ever use her computer again?

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

If she can't get in using a blank password for the account named
"Administrator," the game is over. The only thing she can do is run XP
setup again, delete and recreate the partition during setup, format at that
point when the option is given and start over.

In order to save her data, assuming she didn't have a backup, she could do a
new install of XP to a separate partition on the hard drive and then her
data from the old setup to the new one.

By the way, does she ever use her computer to log on to a domain? The
reason I ask is that message should not come up if she doesn't, assuming XP
was properly installed. During XP setup, the user has the option to setup
the computer to log on to a workgroup or a domain. Computers generally come
from the factory setup for workgroup unless they are going to be used in a
business environment.

If this is not a factory install, it's possible when the computer was first
setup it was setup for a domain, I'm assuming she has XP Pro as opposed to
Home Edition as Home Edition can't log on to a domain. In any event, in a
new installation, be sure to use the workgroup option when presented with it
as opposed to the domain option.

 

[Bob Lavelle]

Thanks for responding.

She would not have any idea about logging on to a domain.
She is using the Home Edition and has had it without
trouble for two years. Windows XP came installed on her
machine. She does not do anything fancy, just e-mail and
word processing and I can't understand how this happened.
She just turned on her computer one day and got the Welcome
messagfe asking for a password. She's away at college
(doing her final papers) and would have trouble doing the
new installation by herself.

I would like to know what's wrong and how to stop it from
happening again.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

You're welcome.

I've seen this a few times and I'm not sure why it is happening, especially
on Home Edition setups that cannot log on to a domain. It may be related to
some update or it might even be a virus but if she can't log on to the
system there's no way to check for viruses.

If her system didn't come with an XP CD, her only option is to use her PC
manufacturer's recovery procedure. NOTE: such procedures usually wipe the
hard drive which loses all the information on the drive before reinstalling
XP. You'll have to check her system documentation with regard to how to
initialize this process or contact the manufacturer's tech support as these
procedures are not a part of XP and are proprietary to the manufacturer.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help.