Pre-loaded winXP: when is Administrator password set?

Factual Questions
1

I have a laptop PC that was purchased at Best Buy with windows XP pre-loaded. From the beginning, I’ve been using a windows user I created when I first started using the machine, and don’t remember ever having to set the “real” Administrator user’s password.

I’m now faced with a situation where I need to use the Recovery Console (from a windows XP CD) but I need to enter the Administrator password and it’s not accepting any password that I may have used.

Does anyone know at what point are you supposed to first set that password when using an machine that XP had pre-loaded? Thanks

2

This might be of some help depending on your service pack:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

3

Did you try using no password? I seem to remember my laptop coming with no administrator password…

–FCOD

4

If I recall, it’s part of the initial “turn on” of the PC. It asks you for an admin account pwd, asks you to set up a user (non-admin), and asks you for machine/domain/workgroup names.

5

[QUOTE=FlyingCowOfDoom]
Did you try using no password? I seem to remember my laptop coming with no administrator password…
[/QUOTE]
Got it in one. The default is no password.

6

[QUOTE=micahjn]
This might be of some help depending on your service pack:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305
[/QUOTE]

wow, does that really work? I’m kind of afraid to try it.

[QUOTE=FlyingCowOfDoom]
Did you try using no password? I seem to remember my laptop coming with no administrator password…

–FCOD
[/QUOTE]

I tried just hitting enter, no dice.

But anyway, I’ve been able to examine the contents of the hard disk using a knoppix live CD and have discovered that I have bigger problems.

The reason why it’s not booting up is because it can’t the the SOFTWARE registry hive. Now that I can mount the HD in linux, I tried copying windows/system32/config/software and I get an Input/Output error!

I guess the disk has a bad block and it hit right on the registry. Grr.

My next thought is to try a chkdsk /r, but again, I can’t use the recovery console. Do you guys know of any other way? I suppose I can go and get an SATA HD enclosure and then run it from another XP machine, but I was hoping there’d be a simpler way …

Alternatively, is there a way in linux to do a similar recovery of a file? I can’t seem to find a way to get cp to ignore bad block errors.

Thanks for the replies.

7

I’ve had good luck with Spinrite, but it’s $89.

8

Leave the user name blank and type admin in the password box.

[QUOTE=arseNal]
wow, does that really work? I’m kind of afraid to try it.
I tried just hitting enter, no dice.

But anyway, I’ve been able to examine the contents of the hard disk using a knoppix live CD and have discovered that I have bigger problems.

The reason why it’s not booting up is because it can’t the the SOFTWARE registry hive. Now that I can mount the HD in linux, I tried copying windows/system32/config/software and I get an Input/Output error!

I guess the disk has a bad block and it hit right on the registry. Grr.

My next thought is to try a chkdsk /r, but again, I can’t use the recovery console. Do you guys know of any other way? I suppose I can go and get an SATA HD enclosure and then run it from another XP machine, but I was hoping there’d be a simpler way …

Alternatively, is there a way in linux to do a similar recovery of a file? I can’t seem to find a way to get cp to ignore bad block errors.

Thanks for the replies.
[/QUOTE]

9

[QUOTE=arseNal]
My next thought is to try a chkdsk /r, but again, I can’t use the recovery console. Do you guys know of any other way?
[/QUOTE]
Run the hard drive manufacturer’s diagnostic on its most thorough setting. It may be able to repair some problems.

You can either download it from the manufacturer’s website and create boot disk(s) or use something like the Ultimate Boot CD which has all the major ones built in.

10

If you do a Google search on “offline NT password reset” the first result should be a Norwegian page at which you can download a very small ISO file. You can use that to burn a CD that will let you reset the admin password to null. The only problem I foresee is that you mentioned problems with the registry, which might prevent you from resetting the admin password.

11

What rights does your normal user account have assigned? Is it assigned administrator rights? You say it preloaded, but is there a manufactures restore cd or a windows XP OEM cd, or something different, like no cd and recovery consel is loaded on the start up harddrive which is possible?

12

[QUOTE=flex727]
I’ve had good luck with Spinrite, but it’s $89.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm. I’ll look into this if nothing else works, thanks.

[QUOTE=Cillasi]
Leave the user name blank and type admin in the password box.
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, to use the Recovery Console, it already assumes Administrator as the user, and you have to put the password for that account. Unless there’s something I’m missing.

[QUOTE=Number]
You can either download it from the manufacturer’s website and create boot disk(s) or use something like the Ultimate Boot CD which has all the major ones built in.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I’m trying something similar to this right now.

[QUOTE=Dewey Finn]
you can download a very small ISO file. You can use that to burn a CD that will let you reset the admin password to null. The only problem I foresee is that you mentioned problems with the registry, which might prevent you from resetting the admin password.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm, this is interesting. I think the Administrator password is separate from the registry, so it might work.

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
What rights does your normal user account have assigned? Is it assigned administrator rights? You say it preloaded, but is there a manufactures restore cd or a windows XP OEM cd, or something different, like no cd and recovery consel is loaded on the start up harddrive which is possible?
[/QUOTE]
The normal account does have admin rights, but stupid recovery console requires you to use the original Administrator account, and I can’t for the life of me remember ever setting his password. If I did, I didn’t use any of my standard passwords, but I doubt I would have done that. I actually suspect this might be the problem with the password:

“The password is not valid” error message appears when you log on to Recovery Console in Windows XP

It’s a toshiba satellite that my company ran out and purchased from Best Buy when the laptop they had ordered for me didn’t arrive in time. As far as I know, it came with no disks (not even a win XP disk) that would help with recovery.

MS has sure made it hard to run the recovery console if it isn’t already installed. It’s a real pain if the machine can’t boot up, which is of course a common state if you are in need of the recovery console, and there are also some difficulties if you have a service pack installed that’s different from the win XP cd you’re using (you need a “slipstreamed” CD).

But at least I’ll have learned some stuff if I ever get through this.

Thanks for everyone’s help.

13

MS made it a real bitch to recover data and the hard drive, so they could impliment their antipiracy protection. It’s real fun to losse data because of the protection.

Before XP service pack 1 You could erase the administrators account if you had administrator rights on a different account. You could then set up a new account named administrator, and put in whatever password you wanted at the first login. I ran accross that trying to recover my installation way back when.

The account may have a manufacture password they entered and the company may be able to supply the default password to you. I know that if you try to access or repair using a different computer running XP it refuses to allow access to the partition to recover files, because of their worry your trying to rip them off.

You may wish to try administrator as the password, as it was used as a default for a while by companies.

Since there is a file problem the password may be correct and the system doesn’t know it is what was originaly used.

14

The in ability to read files from the boot drive by another installation, for recovery, is one reason I make sure to move where browsers store bookmarks or favorites, and outlook stores email is on a different partition that can be accessed later for recovery.

15

Success! Sort of.

There were just too many obstacles to using the recovery console between mismatched service pack versions, unknown Administrator passwords that may or may not have been obfuscated by Sysprep, and other junk.

I used an excellent utility called BartPE that created a bootable CD that had a bunch of useful tools. It’s no doubt similar to the UltimateCD that Number suggested. I was able to do a chkdsk /r from it and recovered the SOFTWARE registry hive. (I find it amazing that the 1 bad 4K cluster hit me right there and not, oh, somewhere on the other 119.99999 gigs.)

The bootable CD was about 1000x easier to get going than the recovery console and is probably a superior diagnostic/repair tool, too.

Anyway, for future potential searchers of the SDMB who might have this problem: bullshit recovery console Stop: c0000218 corrupt registry hive file repair

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
The in ability to read files from the boot drive by another installation, for recovery, is one reason I make sure to move where browsers store bookmarks or favorites, and outlook stores email is on a different partition that can be accessed later for recovery.
[/QUOTE]
How is it that the boot drive was locked down for you? When I used either the Knoppix CD (which even had a read/write NTFS driver) or the BartPE CD I created, I was able to muck around directly in the XP drive.

16

When you connect a hard drive to a working computer running XP, it will not allow you access to the hard drive that has the ntl loader on it or some other way XP marks the boot partiition on a hard drive. XP see’s it’s there. XP refuses to allow access.

17

That is beyond dumb. The “protection” is implemented by the host, not in the drive itself? I wasn’t even trying and I managed to get around that. Amazing.

18

[QUOTE=arseNal]
That is beyond dumb. The “protection” is implemented by the host, not in the drive itself? I wasn’t even trying and I managed to get around that. Amazing.
[/QUOTE]

So be it. I’ll just keep the files on a different drive because it gives me no hassle installs, and I’ve been locked out of the old install before, when I planed to transfer files after a new install. The host is running XP and refusing access to an XP boot partition. It hasn’t given me problems on the partitions without the ntl loader file.

19

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
When you connect a hard drive to a working computer running XP, it will not allow you access to the hard drive that has the ntl loader on it or some other way XP marks the boot partiition on a hard drive. XP see’s it’s there. XP refuses to allow access.
[/QUOTE]
Do you have a cite for this? I work on Windows machines for a living and I’ve never heard of this issue unless something like Encrypting File System is used. Are you sure you had the master/slave jumpers set correctly? Did you take ownership of all files in NTFS permissions?

20

[QUOTE=Harmonious Discord]
So be it. I’ll just keep the files on a different drive because it gives me no hassle installs, and I’ve been locked out of the old install before, when I planed to transfer files after a new install. The host is running XP and refusing access to an XP boot partition. It hasn’t given me problems on the partitions without the ntl loader file.
[/QUOTE]
I hope you don’t think I didn’t believe you or anything, just that I had no idea such a restriction existed. I’m lucky that the method I happened to stumble upon saved me the hassle of dealing with it. At any rate, thanks for the info and your help.