How do I remove a Windows XP password?

[protege]

An interesting one for you all

I was given an old Dell Latitude D600 laptop recently, and even though it's old, I thought I'd throw Ubuntu on it...or at least fix XP and keep it in the garage. The idea being, when I'm working on the car, I don't have to track dirt all over the house, and upstairs into my office to look up parts catalogs.

Problem is, that once the laptop does go into XP, I can't log in. The previous owner had set up a login password, and she has no idea what it is. Since I can't get into Windows to remove it, is there another way?

I've already messed about with the CMOS, but can't seem to get it to boot from CD, no matter how I change the settings. It seems to bypass the CD drive, and insists on going right into Windows. I don't mind reinstalling XP, I really don't. But, does anyone have any ideas?

[Deserted]

If you can't boot from the CD, how are you going to reinstall?

If you have the ability to write a floppy (on another machine) and you can boot from same on the Dell, get sbootmanager. Boot from that floppy and it'll let you boot from the CD (or USB, or HDD, or...). Then you could break the password with ntpasswd or similar.

(Alternately, you would try removing the hdd and putting it into another machine.)

[sms001]

You hit F12 to get into the boot settings, then selected a boot order of CDRom, HDD1, etc?
Then when you rebooted, you waited for the "Press any key to boot from CD" and then you hit that and what happens? Momentary pause and then boot to HDD?
Have you tried tapping F8 between post and boot to see if there's a recovery console installed?
Are you sure your CD is bootable?
Have you tried accessing the Restore Partition (press and hold Ctrl + F11 at the Dell splash screen)

[RichS]

I had to use this method a few times at the computer shop - you could try to see if the default Administrator account would work.

Just press F8 during the BIOS splash screen to get into the Windows XP selection screen, then select to start in Safe Mode. When it boots, there should be a list of all of the user accounts on the computer, including an Administrator account. Log onto that account with no password; if the previous user didn't set a password for this account, you should be in and able to either remove the password for the previous user's account, or create a new account.

As I said, this only works if the previous user didn't set a password for the default Administrator account. On a Windows XP install, when it asks to give a name for your PC, it also asks for a password for this account. Most people just click through this.

[protege]

The first time, I was able to get into the CMOS, and moved the CD drive so it was first in line. Even after multiple reboots, it still wanted to get into Windows. Annoyed, I shut it down Friday night, and left it. Today, when I fired it up to try those ideas...it went right into booting from CD

[protege]

Well, that didn't work. As soon as it starts to install Windows, it gets a fatal error. It's looking for a file in d:\i386. As soon as I try to select that directory...it won't let me. I have a feeling that the CD drive is failing, but I'm not sinking any money into this thing. It's 10 years old, and simply not worth fixing.

Edit: I just ran its diagnostic program. That threw out an error stating that the hard drive is failing. No wonder writing the installation files isn't working! Again, no point in fixing it.

[Deserted]

You can still use it. Run a livecd version of Linux (or your system of choice) and save any changes to a USB drive. I've done that before, and it works pretty darn good.

[ComputerNecromancer]

We had a similar problem with a customer who needed files off an old desktop, but had forgotten the password.

We bought a copy of Active Password Changer ( http://www.password-changer.com/ ) because we figured we might have nedd to do it again some day.

Works great. Lets you set any account to "no password" (this is so you can't use it to hack a system without it being obvious).

You can boot it off a floppy, CD or USB drive.

[protege]

I'll have to see if that thing will even boot to USB. For now though, the file system on it is a mess--Windows didn't finish installing.

[Deserted]

Well, it looks like I'm probably wrong about sbootmgr knowing how to boot from USB, but as long as the CD drive is good, it knows how to boot from it, even if the BIOS doesn't.

[lordlundar]

I'll have to see if that thing will even boot to USB. For now though, the file system on it is a mess--Windows didn't finish installing.

Geeze, might be best to nuke the partition and reinstall then.