forgotten password on laptop advice required

gill07

hi my boyfriends daughter has gone and forgot her admin password that allows her to log on to her laptop.i have tried most of things suggested in other posts on here and have scoured the net and tried various things to no avail. i have tried the safe mode suggestion but the admin account on it is also passworded. i did manage to download a password removing tool that i tried on my pc. it worked but as cd wont run unless you login to account on laptop i cant seem to remove password. is the only option left to reinstall xp? if so how does she go about this and what is rough idea of cost
many thanks gill

Blacksheep1979

set the bios to boot from cd first - something you'll have to do if you want to reformat anyway. Then there are a number of tools out there to remove or reset the password

fwor

I recently used the utility here:

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Although originally written for NT, it worked fine on XP Pro, allowing me to reset the Admin password without a problem. Please read the notes first - especially if you are using Windows EFS (Encrypting File System).

gill07

hi thanks for reply.how do you set the bios to boot from cd? i managed to run cd in guest account but that wouldnt remove password from admin. i cant see it working as you wouldnt be able to run cd at login screen would you.or would it not come up on login screen if you boot from cd?

Hungerdunger

gill07 wrote: »

hi thanks for reply.how do you set the bios to boot from cd?

When you first turn the computer on, there should be a message (probably at the bottom of the screen) which says "Press xxxx to enter Setup". On most desktops it's the Delete key; on my Toshiba laptop it's F2.
Once you're in there you need to find the screen which shows the order your machine looks at either the Hard Drive or the CD/DVD drive while booting up. Alter it to make the CD/DVD the first one.
If at any time you think you have made a mistake, ensure you choose the option to exit without making changes - messing up the Bios can cause a lot of problems!

gill07

hi i did that it wont allow me to change boot sequence it says configure set up disabled and wont change to enable. also looks like admin in set up might be passworded. do you think it best to have new xp installed

fwor

gill07 wrote: »

do you think it best to have new xp installed

I don't think that will help. In fact if the BIOS has a password set then it probably won't be possible, or at least will be very difficult, because you need to boot from CD to install XP (ok there ~are~ other ways but they are not easy).

I think you will need to do a bit more Googling with the specific make and model in your search to find out how to clear the BIOS password (which to be clear is different from the XP Admin password, of course!)

epz_2

there are loads of programs out there that will let you crack the user passwords, john the ripper springs to mind

BritBrat

If its windows password thats easy, if it's the BIOS well that's hard.

fwor

BritBrat wrote: »

If its windows password thats easy, if it's the BIOS well that's hard.

Agreed - it's more hardware-specific. But with the make & model and a bit of Googling, the answer is almost certainly out there...

gill07

so if i can crack the windows password that she has forgotten it wont matter about the bios password will it cos i only needed to boot from cd to run a password remover programme. and i am not sure if i might have put the password on the bios when i was messing last night because it came up admin password and i set one thinking it would alter windows one to the same so she could get in. DOH! if so how do i now get to alter boot to cd because nothing comes up enter password it just all seems locked now