Re: Access to XP Home PC

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Steve wrote:

Hi,

This kind of question must have been asked a million times, but as usual I can't find anything that helps me!

I've got a laptop with XP Home installed. It has one user account with admin rights but no password (stupid, I know!). The computer used to auto login to this account, presumably because it was the only one.

I then installed some software on my computer which required a reboot. Since doing so, I am faced with a login dialog upon reboot, with my username in the username box. However, pressing Enter (no password) reports an incorrect password error! I've never had a password...Why has this happened? I've tried safe mode boot up, and when asked for an Administrator password (which I never created, Windows was pre-installed) again, a blank entry fails.

I have to get some documents off the laptop quite urgently, and as I can't login, I'm quite stuck. I took the hard disk out, and with a USB adapter connected it to my desktop PC. However, my documents folder is inaccessible, Access Denied.

Put the drive back in the USB enclosure and then from the desktop take ownership of the files and you will be able to access them.

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

After you have secured your files you can put the disk back in the laptop and use this to see if you can overcome the password problem:

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

John

.

Relevant Pages

  • "Unable to log you on because the Netlogon service is not running."
    ... I have a 3 years old HP XP SP2 laptop which won't let me to login with any ... This is one of our employees laptop. ... administrator account. ... with this is that the laptop uses My Documents folder redirection to our ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Serious problems, neet help ASAP!
    ... I can dial in and login from that PC but I cannot browse, access aol, or do ... I've used Norton all my computing days on my own laptop since Win95 and rarely ... My folks do not have the Windows XP install disk, and bye the way the restore ... so the viruses are cleaned off the system. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: Linksys home network problems
    ... The site also has a link " If all you need right now is a login ... That refers to a password of only 8 characters. ... " We are not experts on Windows, but at least one source we found says ... via the guest's laptop, what is the procedure I need to do on that ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)
  • Re: Domain Login failure
    ... I typically login to my work domain on my laptop, ... local machine's administrator account. ... contact with a DC (VPN clients don't generally count) perhaps this is not ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: Joined workgroup, now login doesnt work
    ... Seems to me I should be able to log in to the home workgroup, ... original domain the laptop login was created for. ... make the computer a member of another domain, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)