New/Used laptop; need to get past password protection

[Salem]

I did it!!! Reformatted and started with a clean slate, which I agree with those that said it was probably best. Thanks for the support and assistance!

Now I just have to install a wireless card, which shouldn’t be too difficult. So I should be back to ask about that! hehe

[Cleophus]

@TimeWinder

Which does you absolutely no good if you can’t get them onto the machine (on some laptops, during the install of XP, before the optical drive is initialized, you need to install drivers for the quasi-SCSI disks that are installed in them. The only device it can read at that point is a floppy drive.) I have been in this situation about two years ago, when, it must be pointed out, I was actually working for HP – our internal IT confirmed we had to send the laptops back to be re-imaged if we’d nuked the on-board re-install partition. Several models were shipped this way (they used the goofy drives because they improved performance).

I would be interested to know what model these laptops are. It sounds like that they had some sort of external CD-ROM drives or new SATA hardware (I’m not really sure what “quasi-SCSI” is supposed to mean). All but the very newest (as in, shipping right now) SATA hardware may have issues with old (pre-SP2) XP media. But the OP’s laptop was full PATA, so there would have been no issue whatsoever, as she found out.

Anyway, back to the OP. Do you mean install the drivers for the built-in WiFi (the ze4200 series had that option), or an external card? Regardless, just pop the card in and run the driver install package from a thumbdrive or CD.