Topic awaiting preservation: XP help........

After getting home from work on Friday (Oct 3) I got the unfortunate experience of learning that my closest cousin (like a brother) had killed himself.

It sucks... but thats not the reason for my post.

My aunt and uncle have asked me for help.... They cannot get into his computer... and would like to get some of the pictures and video footage off of it.

I know he uses Windows XP. (which I do not)

Does anyone know of a way to reset the administrator password so that we could have unrestricted access to his files?

I do know it is possible. I just would rather know how in advance before I make a 3 hour drive to their house.

Thanks.

Jason

PS- I appologise if this is a taboo question.... if anyone knows and would rather email me to keep it out of the forum... that would be appreciated too.

I'm sorry to hear about your cousin Nemesis. I don't have the answer you're looking for but I'm sure someone along will. For what its worth I think it would be appropriate if any sort of information transaction is conducted by email.

I'd rather not have the Asylum shut down from a lawsuit from Microsoft.

Jestah

Dude, thats rough man.

umm... we have talked about this before on this board. I dunno if it works with XP, and I dont really remember the answer, but it had to do with resetting jumpers on yo mother board. I may be off by miles, but thats what I remember from last time.

Gee guys would it help if he told us cusin's name?



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I would think the easyest way is just pull the hard drive and insall as the second device on another system as a non-boot disk and by-passing windows and /or the bios password all together.

Or if it's just a windows password you might try accessing the system in save mode F8.

I don't think you have to worry about Microsoft as they tell you how to recover user password on their website. It's Windows is after all, security is a secondary consern. If you can get into the system at all you can get most if not all the data.

Here is a link to Microsofts's help. Besure to read the whole article before you try it, as reseting the passwords will make some data inaccessable.

quote:

---

WARNING: If you reset the password for a user account in this manner in Windows XP Professional, the following types of information for that user will be no longer available:
E-mail messages that are encrypted with the user's public key
Internet passwords that are saved on, or remembered by, the computer
Any files that the user has encrypted

---

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q321305

In many cases the bios can be reset by a jumper or special boot procedure. Check the motherboard docs.

If you have to reset the admin password, I would guess as a last resort one could boot off the windows XP CD and use Windows Recovery to reinstall over top of the current system but I don't konw how save that would be.

J. Stuart J.

PS: Please take care, you may find data you don't wish to find.


[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 10-12-2003).]

The Microsoft article only explains what you can do when you have access to another account with administrative priveliges (always worth a try as XP defaults to these when you create new accounts...).

Otherwise this might help:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1045170553


kuckus

Thanks everyone.

Especially Kuckus....

Thats exactly the software I was after.

I also realize the fact that there is probably going to be a lot of stuff on there that nobody wants to see. That is why I think I am just going to pick the system up and do it from home. That way I can filter out any bad stuff. I think thats what my cousin would want me to do.

Jason

Thanks again.

There are two administrator passwords in XP Pro. The most important one is accessable in safe mode... but it seems you have resolved your issue so I need say no more.

ps.. and who cares what Microsoft thinks... if you have a strong door and lock yourself out of your home and I help yu to get back inside your house.. is the door maker gonna shoot me? Microsoft ain't my god... get of of that worship syndrome.

...try a psychotic door maker with expensive guns..

...let's not give anyone a reason to raise an eyebrow to the Asylum

However, I don't think this qualifies....

My friend has a CD that when you boot from it, it lets you change the administrator password... no idea what it's called, though...


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I hear you Petskull... still I don't care... big expensive guns.. i did not grow up with those movies or values... it's not built into my psyche... anyway he got in his house... so I can go back down in my hole...

peace