Login issue with XP Pro

[Drackie]

Hello there,

I'm completely new here but have read (I think) all the relevant stickies but apologise if I missed one!

I have a laptop running xp pro that I've booted to Knoppix STD in order to reset the Administrator password.

After doing this, I still can't log in. I went back and checked what users were installed and also reset/unlocked the Guest password.

Knoppix is adament that there is no password on the admin/guest accounts but I still cannot log in as any user.

Is there a way to get into this machine? or am I into file recovery and re-installing?

[krishna.murphy]

What methodology did you use to reset the passwords? I know it's not as simple as Win98 and friends used to be, but I'm not sure what to recommend in this case. Perhaps a link to something that tells what to do would be the best thing...

Cheers!
Krishna

[kl522]

I have a laptop running xp pro that I've booted to Knoppix STD in order to reset the Administrator password.

Wrong forum, post it to Knoppix STD forum please, here we know nothing about this "Knoppix STD".

[Harry Kuhman]

Wrong forum, post it to Knoppix STD forum please, here we know nothing about this "Knoppix STD".

Well, I know that STD was based on a very old version of Knoppix and it could not safely write to a NTFS disk. Therefor it must not have contained any tool for resetting a Windows password.

I'm also of the belief that the current version of Knoppix can't safely write to NTFS either. And has no tools to recover Windows passwords.

Having had to do it once, I also know that the password is stored in an encrypted or hashed form, and it takes a lot of computing to recover it. This isn't a cracker site and since I have no personal knowledge of the original poster, I have to say that it would be inappropriate to provide any help in breaking into a password protected system. He might be a perfectly fine guy, but he also could be someone with a stolen laptop, or someone trying to break into a work system or a roommate's computer. The computer was apparently password protected for a reason, how would you feel about a site if you password protected your computer but that site helped someone break into it?

[Drackie]

Harry,

It was a long shot to ask and I respect that you do not wish this discussed here.

I realise that this isn't much in the way of reassurance, I am genuine and do have legal access to the machine in question. I have taken on a system which has never been administered and the laptop was discovered in storage, with a note attached "don't know the password". Having all the disks and keys separated and zero records being kept of anything, I was hoping to gain access without a full re-install.

I will respect your wishes and will not persue this further.

For Krishna's curiosity I will PM the link to what I did (so as not to link it here).