How to wipe and reuse hard drive? Or... what to do with my computer?

I've forgotten my windows login pw and am also the administrator and had used the same pw for that, not smart but that's now in the pass and I've learned my lesson. I've tired every thing, can't afford the "pay for" one's, don't know how to "boot from cd", and only have one account on it I can use which is "grandchildren, limited". And for some reason the clock has gone nuts, says it's Feb.5th, 2005 and I can't even change that as the account is limited, it says I don't have permission. Yes, I've really done myself in..

Here's where I'm at now. I bought this hard drive new, 500 gb, and installed it with help from you guys, then cloned my 40gb onto it and it has worked great for 3 years, locking myself out of windows is the only problem I've had until now.

1. Is it possible to do this again only wipe the 500gb hd first, then do the same thing I did. I still have the 40gb, I'm hoping this is the one that will work. It worked so well the first time, just don't know how to wipe the 500gb. And, what if the 40 has a pw, I"ll be in the same spot?

2. Or, would it be possible to use the 40gb as master and the 500gb as slave? If I've said this right? Or would I still have to have the pw to get into the 500?

3. Or worse comes to worse, I have the reinstall disc but how do I wipe the 500gb to install it on.

4. Not sure how to explain this one but if I do a reinstall then partition if off so I can then install the 40 to copy and paste my important pics and programs on to the 500, would that work? I'm pretty sure the 40 had a pw.

I think the wiping and cloning would be better but I don't know how and if it's (the 40gb) pw'd, well, would I be in the same spot? I'm so lost with all of this right now I don't think I'm thinking clearly. I do have the reinstall disc but to lose everything is painful, guess that's a given here?
Thanks for any suggestions and advice. Patti

Dell GX260/ XP PRO os/

I would strongly recommend against wiping the drive, since it sounds like you haven't been backing up your user data to anywhere else (which you should really set up as soon as you gain access again).

Is your administrator account named "Administrator"? Because if not, it's possible that the default Administrator account on the PC is there, and not password protected. At the Log On screen for XP, hit CRTL-ALT-DEL twice, which will bring up the classic login window. Type in "Administrator" and leave the password blank. If it successfully logs you into the default Administrator account, go to control panel and change the password on your account. Don't worry about the warning about losing passwords or encrypted files.

Please come back and post if this fix works for you or not.

pattikat4 said:   1. Is it possible to do this again only wipe the 500gb hd first, then do the same thing I did. I still have the 40gb, I'm hoping this is the one that will work. It worked so well the first time, just don't know how to wipe the 500gb. And, what if the 40 has a pw, I"ll be in the same spot?

Yes, if you clone the drive it will be exactly the same. That's what cloning is. So, if there is a password it will still be there.

2. Or, would it be possible to use the 40gb as master and the 500gb as slave? If I've said this right? Or would I still have to have the pw to get into the 500?

Making the 40 a master would allow it to boot, but if the 40 has a password it won't matter. You could just hook up the 40 by itself and boot it to find out if there is a password or not.

3. Or worse comes to worse, I have the reinstall disc but how do I wipe the 500gb to install it on.

During the install process you can format the drive if you want to.

4. Not sure how to explain this one but if I do a reinstall then partition if off so I can then install the 40 to copy and paste my important pics and programs on to the 500, would that work? I'm pretty sure the 40 had a pw.

Not sure what you are saying here, but if the 40 has a password that you don't know there is no reason to mess with it.

What you really need to do is learn to boot from CD. Once you've figured that out you can use a CD to wipe the Windows password out and none of the rest of this will matter.

Power on and look at the screen to find out which key to hit to enter setup. Or, being a Dell, you may be able to just hit F12 for boot options. If F12 works you will get a menu and can choose Boot from CD.

To Marsilies

HI, oh trust me, I don't want to wipe out anything, but it's looking like I'm not going to have any other choice. I tried the C+A+D double clicking, rebooting after each try several times, but it didn't open. Well it did after the first CAD attempt but it was for the g-kids acct. But if it had it would still have been asking for the same pw, they are the same in this case as my own (Kat) acct. I think I know what you are talking about when you say the difference between admin and default admin, but I've only found the one and they seem to be the same, both asking for pw.

I did burn ( or it said so anyway,) a disc that says 'boot, mom's comp' I guess I thought that would make sense later? Then another that says 'xp pro/ install and updates/ sp2-sp3/ 9-29-09' yes, 2009. not a glowing example of up to date-ness but it's looking pretty good right now. I used Titan backup I believe and made them ISO's and it would say that burning was complete. But, I don't know how to make my comp boot into 'boot to disc'.

I've gone into bios ( F2 I believe) hoping it there would be something saying? push here to boot from disc? No such buttons or anything else I can find. I was wondering if, where it says 'boot sequence' ( I have all three checked) if I uncheck #'s 1 and 2 and leave #3. IDE cd-rom device checked if that would let me boot from the disc?

In F12 (boot menu) there's a list of things, first one being 'normal' and #2,3 and 4 being the same as F2 boot sequence where I had all 3 options checked, would that be where I could uncheck 2,3 and leave #4 checked, (IDE cd-rom device) would this be where I could tell the computer to boot from cd?

I know I've made all of this 'wordy', but I'm trying to make up for the lack of terminology I guess. I've been trying all of this for so long,( it's been over 3 months since I locked myself out) I seem to have the right discs just can't figure out how to boot to cd to see if they will work. I really don't want to give up and start it all again, it's been my own little world that I come to and be able to do or go where ever I wanted and it's hard to think of losing all of that. I really appreciate all you help, thank you, Patti

To lordoffiree,
Totally agree about not smoking, lol,and #4. HUH?, and NOT jumping the gun. Thanks! ( and for the laugh) Patti

There is a program (boots from CD) which will discover your password on XP but it takes awhile to run..... Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the program (It's at home and I'm at work).

Like someone above said Google "Windows Password Recovery". I wouldn't reset it, I would recover it.

If I remember I'll look up the prgm and post the name when I get home. It's a free download. I've used it on MANY XP machine and it has always worked.

Found it..... Ophcrack http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

If you can download and burn...

minidrag said:   This is the one I use all the time:
Windows password reset
Boot from the CD, reset the password. No Internet required, no sending info to other people.

Then back on the protected PC use F12 to choose Boot from CD

pattikat4 said:   I'm thinking I might be able to put my burner in another computer but am dreading it as I've just had surgery and that's a lot of moving around.
I didn't know that you didn't have a CD burner in the working computer. If you have a USB flash drive, you may be able to boot off of that instead.

You can use this utility to take an ISO file and make a bootable USB drive from it. It works with the password utilities mentioned in this thread:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Imgburn is a very simple, very easy to use, free program for burning ISO files.

I certainly agree with the sentiment, but not all reair shops rip people off.

minidrag said:   I certainly agree with the sentiment, but not all reair shops rip people off.
of course not, especially if you know someone who does it for a living....I was mainly referring to the big box places that pretty much use the checklist-approach:

"if none of these 10 steps fix it, we just wipe and move on"...."it's not worth our time"

lordoffire said:   ....I was mainly referring to the big box places that pretty much use the checklist-approach:

Would you be referring to that Blue & Yellow logo store that is a really "Crappy-Buy" place to purchase items? If so, I TOTALLY agree with you!!!!!!!!!!!

lordoffire said:   minidrag said:   I certainly agree with the sentiment, but not all reair shops rip people off.
of course not, especially if you know someone who does it for a living....I was mainly referring to the big box places that pretty much use the checklist-approach:

"if none of these 10 steps fix it, we just wipe and move on"...."it's not worth our time"

Well that's often my approach as well. I would probably try a lot more probable solutions than the typical big box location, but I have often ended up doing that.

If the customer wants it fixed within a certain price, there's only so much I can do before a wipe and reinstall is the only feasible guaranteed option available.

Hi All,

I apologize for how slow this is going and I'll just say this quickly and hope you'll understand. I have some health issues and just had emergency surgery which seems to have caused a flair of something else and it's all slowed me down considerably. If I'd known all of this was going to happen I wouldn't have started this, I feel bad for tying you all up like like this and am grateful for all your help. I want to keep going if it's alright but felt the need to explain what's going on, it's not just me losing interest.
One thing I have accomplished is taking out the 500gb h.d. on here and putting in the 40gb I mentioned above, the one I cloned onto the 500gb when it was new. I was afraid I'd locked myself out of that one too with the pw problem but turns out I had the good sense to take it off before I did the cloning so it does work. Almost... I can't get online with it. Comcast tried a couple of things and told me to contact Microsoft.
Pitiful as that is, it's my good news. I can't seem to be able to burn the copy of ophcrack, but will keep trying, slow as it might be. That's about it from this end but will keep trying to do something (?). I'm not sure I'll be able to get back here tomorrow, ( Dr. wants tests) but should be back thursday. Take care, Patti

Hi,
Today is the day, I will make progress! Actually I have a bit more good news, turns out my son had installed Nero everything and I finally got the Ophcrack iso burned, at least that's what it said so I'm going with it. Now, as far as boot sequence, I got there but turns out when I was setting up bios I had ticked all three things, the floppy, h.d. and cd-rom. (not the right words but you know what I mean, I hope?) I'm pretty sure I need the cd one but someone had said not to uncheck any of them. If I do need to leave all the options checked how does it know to boot with cd? There are no other options for boot sequence, no way to bring it to the top, I think that's the way someone said it? I'm pretty nervous about not knowing the right way to get started using the cd, and once I do get it to work how will I know what to do with what's on it? I'm going to have to find myself a rich guy to keep my computer going or adopt a smart IT person, I'm fine with either one as long as I don't have to do all of this myself anymore.
So, I'll be checking back here and scanning about.com for how to boot, I love that they have video for a lot of the things and hope I've got some good news to report back with. Thanks, Patti

Worst case, set it to CD boot only. After you are done booting from the CD and remove the password just go back to BIOS and you can change it back to boot from hard drive.

To minidrag:

Honestly, it's one step forward and two steps back with this stuff sometimes, isn't it? Thanks for the advise above on all the subjects,and it does help when you copy my part and have the answer below it. By the way, I finally figured out how to make it boot with cd. Almost too simple, seems I just wasn't paying attention like I needed to be.

Now about the cd, I tried 'freeisoburner', ultraiso and nero, the freeiso wouldn't even start doing it, with ultraiso and nero they said the burning was complete but I when I tried to use them the Ulta one didn't do anything and nero seemed to run, or start to then an error message showed up saying "ISOLINUX 4.05 2011-12-09" then the next line under it was "EDD:ERROR 8000 reading sect 217152" SOOOO.....? Maybe the ophcrack download had a problem with it? Thing is, I'm out of cds. Or there might be one left but I can't seem to figure out which ones are clean (?) My son had said you can tell by the differences at the outside rims, that kind of..I can't think of how to describe it. For Heaven's sake! My IQ is taking a real down hill fall fast. So, the only thing I can think of is get some more cds, try another d/w with ophcrack? or try another program all together? But, until I have more cds I'm on hold, unless someone has another idea? It's going to be a few days before I can get out to get them so I'm on hold for now. Or there's a possibility there might be a usb stick around here, if I can find it I could try the suggestion Marsilies gave above, worth a try anyway.

Well, that's where I'm at right now. Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday tomorrow, take care, Patti

pattikat4 said:   Now about the cd, I tried 'freeisoburner', ultraiso and nero, the freeiso wouldn't even start doing it, with ultraiso and nero they said the burning was complete but I when I tried to use them the Ulta one didn't do anything and nero seemed to run, or start to then an error message showed up saying "ISOLINUX 4.05 2011-12-09" then the next line under it was "EDD:ERROR 8000 reading sect 217152" SOOOO.....? Maybe the ophcrack download had a problem with it? Thing is, I'm out of cds. Or there might be one left but I can't seem to figure out which ones are clean (?) My son had said you can tell by the differences at the outside rims, that kind of..I can't think of how to describe it.

Are you getting the ISOLINUX error when you try to boot from the CD or while you are trying to create the CD?

As for telling which CDs are blank - if you can get Nero to work there is a place in there (it varies depending on your version so I can't tell you where) to get Info about the CD in the drive. That will tell you if it is blank or not. I would imagine the other programs have that somewhere too, but I know Nero does for sure.

pattikat4 said:   Or there's a possibility there might be a usb stick around here, if I can find it I could try the suggestion Marsilies gave above, worth a try anyway.

Yes, I would try this. If there is a problem with your drive or your burning software going to USB would be a good workaround.

Hi Minidrag and all of you that have tried to help me with all of this;

I've started this post several times but everyday there is something else going wrong and I'm pooped. I've ran ever scan I've got or that will allow to me to access, some that have taken up to 2 days and they all say there is nothing wrong, "0 ----- found", (fill in the ---). I did run a boot scan with my antivirus prgm, avast, after 20-something hours I finally stopped it and it did show somethings which I sent to quarantine but honestly I don't even know where to take it from here. I'm blocked by not having my admin rights with so many things.

I'm wondering if I should do a hijack run, if it will let me, and post it but even if we would find things would it even let me delete them?

Never mind that idea, I can't find the hijack prgm I have used several times before in my Start>All Programs, and after trying to d/l it again only to be told I have to be signed in as admin, this is the 7th prgm I've tried in less than 36 hours. I'm really starting to think I might end up doing a clean install or whatever it is, I'm certainly not enjoying any of my time on my computer, its all frustration and tears at this point. (sorry for the drama) It's hard to understand that just by not having access to my account and only having access to this limited one, that I will end up losing atleast 4 years of things but I feel like that's what's going to happen. Every day I spent hours trying to find prgms that will be what I need only after searching for and installing then trying to run I end up with popup windows or whatever telling me I must have admin rights to use.

Well, I've now decided that if I can't get something to burn and let me fix my pw problem, that as of noon tomorrow, 24 hours from now, I have to move on. It's become so depressing to keep hitting the same block with no relief in sight that I feel like I have to make a decision and stick with it. It's been at least 4 months now since I've been able to use my own account, it became a weird kind of challenge for friends and neighbors, my son and g-son, and then me, again. I'm going to go back and read all of the comments all of you have made here, see if I've missed something...try something differently... give it all I've got even if it's not much right now and if it's not working 24 hours and 5 minutes ago then I'll be back asking for help on how to do what I posted in the first post I did here. I have to make some kind of progress somewhere, this is turning into an energy draining, daily dreading event that I can't see an end to at this rate. It use to be something I really looked forward to, my own little world that I could escape into and now it's just something to try to escape from.

So, here I go again. Wish me luck and again thanks for all the help. I'm sure I'll be back soon. or maybe, just maybe . Hopefully, Patti

To minidrag,

About the questions you ask 3 post up: The message came after the boot, after I thought it might work but after a couple of minutes the message showed up. Thanks for the info for finding the state of health on the disc, I finally got something to work. Oh, no usb, so 1 out of 3, glad I'm not a betting woman. Take care, Patti

Hi All,

Finally, great news and Thank You to all of you that have been been so helpful. My son came back for my b-day and was able to go over all you guys did here, burn the cd and make it all come together and it worked, I'm back in my comp.

I really do appreciate your help and patience, I was ready to give up a month ago but you all were so encouraging, I hope all of you understand what you do for us out here. I'd like to say bye and I won't be back but I know I will as I'm having problems with explorer, can't get into a lot of my folders but for now.... Thank you and Happy 4th of July! Patti