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pc admin lock out advice
Conroy Bumpas
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
my mom's company went bust or moved or somthing and they sold off all the pc's and printers ect to the staff. so my mum for about £30 got her work pc printer and ldc.
shes asked me to remove all the work stuff as it has customer data ect. as she just wants to use it a home pc for web and a bit of word prosessing.
now hears the problem it looks like the it department have locked out the pc for having stuff installed or removed off it. cant see hidden documents. its locked up tight.
there is no way of finding out the admin log in.
so im thinking a reinstall is my only option. problem is they dint give her a recovery disk or the drivers cd.
on the pc is xp pro. i have an xp home disk from another pc
what can i do?
shes asked me to remove all the work stuff as it has customer data ect. as she just wants to use it a home pc for web and a bit of word prosessing.
now hears the problem it looks like the it department have locked out the pc for having stuff installed or removed off it. cant see hidden documents. its locked up tight.
there is no way of finding out the admin log in.
so im thinking a reinstall is my only option. problem is they dint give her a recovery disk or the drivers cd.
on the pc is xp pro. i have an xp home disk from another pc
what can i do?
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Is it a PC or a workstation? (Mainly does it have a CD drive or not.)
Do you have access to the BIOS?
yeah i can get to the bios
Change it to boot from CD
Insert windows CD
Reformat HD
Fresh install of windows
...
Profit.
EDIT:
If for some redonkuslous reason it won't let you reformat theres other boot utilities you can use to wipe the HD wither it wants to or not.
EDIT: EDIT:
Obviously backup any files that need to be saved.
most pc i have ever used came with a windows disk (recover etc) and a drivers disk .... i dont have the drivers disc
problem?
Depends on just what the PC was used for at work. Most work "PCs" that I've encountered are basic no frills systems without anything special added to it.
What I'd do if you can access the PC is check the device manager to see if theres anything special intalled in it (or just crack open the case and check for a soundcard or video card or anything that would warrent nonstandard drivers (such as a non-onboard network card).
On systems that I've bought at yard sales and whatnot where its an unknown I check what I can and start fresh with it. I like to have a blank slate to work with (reformat) and a trusted OS (fresh install) on the PC and then if something isn't working I'll start googling for drivers for the piece (usually a network card) that isn't being recognized.
Just do a quick scan of the back of the PC to see if theres a video/sound/capture/network/other card installed, if there isn't then you should be good to go.
EDIT:
No a reinstall isn't your only option, there are ways to crack the admin password on it but the easiest and what most people would recommend is a fresh install of windows so you've got a clean slate to work from. You don't know if theres any virus/spyware/bloatware/admin tools [IE admin monitoring tools] on the system and doing a format and fresh install can save you the time and headaches of dealing with that.
...
is this just aload of bollox?
also when i have it sorted is there any good free security softwware i can put on theer for her?
i tryed useing avg once but it slowed the computer down to a snails pace
In so far as the disk will work on a non-Dell computer, yes. It is an OEM version, though, Windows versions have some funky compatibility with registration keys and OEM versions, it may not accept a non-OEM key or a key from a different OEM version (I can use the XP disk from my old Dell with the key my HP, but not the one my fiancee's Toshiba), and if you use a key that you're still using on another computer you'll probably run into authentication issues.
Avira and Avast also have free versions, I haven't had the performance problems with either of them on slower computers that I've had with the last version or two of AVG. Avira's a bit more transparent for somebody who's aggressively computer illiterate, but it has a huge nag that it will toss in your face once a day or so every time it updates.
Much better than Avast or AVG, both of which have lost quality. At least for their free versions.
MSE is really pretty good.
If you wanted to check what's on the PC before format, there are d/l programs to reset forgotten passwords. A clean wipe would be best, though. I'm sure you know, but don't forget to create two partitions - one for Windows the other for docs.
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