Jump to content
aberdeen-music

Locked out of Windows


Marsh

Recommended Posts

I know there are a few I.T. gurus on here so thought I'd see if anyone could help me with this problem I have:

My P.C. runs Windows XP and was running very slow. I did the full monty of defragging and used TuneUp Utilities on all the bits that were slow or not optimised. Restarted - no worries. Running fine.

I then used a Registry cleaner to speed things up further and get rid of unnessecary files- I ran this but in the middle of it, while I was browsing the internet, the P.C. just hung and beeped from the base unit. Left it for four hours but it never recovered. Had to switch off at the wall.

Restarted - brick wall. The "welcome" screen where it says Windows is loading your personal settings usually took about 5 seconds then displayed the two user accounts. Now, this takes about 5 minutes. And here is the real problem - both accounts are now password protected. I've never set a password before as it's just the wife and me in the house so I've never really needed it. I definitely have never set an admin password beofre either. So basically, I'm fully locked out with no idea how this happened.

I read that by default the admin password should be blank so went into safe mode and tried adding a blank admin password. Didn't work.

I downloaded a boot disk from a website that enabled me to go into safe mode then add a set of commands in DOS to reset the admin password. Didn't work.

I'm just a bit fearful that there's something missing in the registry now that can't be repaired. It's a bit of a strange one.

Am I going to have to pay for something like this (which may not even work)

Windows Password Reset - ResetWindowsPassword.com

Or will I just have to reinstall XP? All my music, photos and fliles are on my extrernal hard drive so it wouldn't quite be the end of the world, but I really want to try everything possible before I'm forced to do this.

I have also read that I can run a repair through the XP installation disk - does anyone know if this would work?

Any help or advice would be most appreciated and anyone who can come up with a solution will be rewarded with a few beers or whatever.

Cheers

Marsh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try the repair through the XP installation disk. You should have a recovery disk that will let you restore the system to it's last useful state before you made the changes.

Otherwise it looks like full re-install could be your best bet.

Or before you do that you could try some of the free password recovery tools here:

Forgot the Administrator's Password? - Windows Password Recovery - Windows Password Reset

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...