Laptop has put a password on Xp...Somehow?

Delvis · 2 Oct 2008 at 20:04

Howdy...

Right, I got home tonight, and I thought to myself "I'll put this extra stick of RAM in my mothers Laptop that I have laying around, as it may make it a tad quicker"...

So, I go ahead and do this, boot the system up which is running Microsoft XP Pro, and suddenly there is a logon screen? Asking for a password?

They (mother or boyfriend) have not set a password up on the laptop...So, is it SOMEHOW

confused

possible for RAM to put passwords on XP installs? Because the hardware has changed or?

I have botted the system up again with the original RAM back in, and it does the same thing....I've tried booting to safe mode, and logging in as admin, without a password, to no joy...

Any ideas? What the hell has happened? They both swear they haven't put a password on...But how the hell can a stick of RAM add a password to a system? Unless I'm missing something.

Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 11:44

Mr Kingston said:
Boot the laptop up press F8 and boot into safe mode use the admistartor account and remove the password, Simple!

Hah, first thing I tried sadly matey

The Administrator account has a password on it as well

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 11:50

Hen_Dawg said:
This happened to me too. See below, hope it solves it
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17712975&highlight=startername_Hen_Dawg

Sadly, .net isn't on the system, as it is an old laptop.

Thank you anyway though

I have tried Ophcrack as well, however it does not appear to find anything. I can read the text file, however it just gives me a load of 'hash' code information, which obviously isn't helpful to me

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 14:49

ron3003 said:
Didn't you try Pc Login Now? That should simply remove any passwords rather than try to discover them.

No I haven't tried it yet, only got back from holiday last night so haven't had time.

I will try it in a bit, see if it comes up with anything though, thanks for the recommendation

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 16:01

ron3003 said:
Didn't you try Pc Login Now? That should simply remove any passwords rather than try to discover them.

no joy with this either...

Boots up, finds all accounts, click on whichever ones you need (User and administrator) it says applying actions etc, then once rebooted, same story sadly...

Also tried clicking the no password box in both accounts, but that didn't do anything either.

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 16:02

WILD9 said:
Try this, Its never let me down yet, The CD iso is the one to use

Hopefully try this eventually...Running out of cd's though...

Do you need to be in windows for this one though? Cause naturally I can't get in at the moment.

Cheers.

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 16:10

WILD9 said:
No its a boot cd it boots to a linux environment, the default options are pretty much exactly what you need, just let it guide you through.

yeah...only problem is I have tried two programs now...that should have found it, yet nothing seem to find a password :confused:

Ophcrack scans, then comes back saying no password found on both User and Administrators accounts...Only thing remotely pointing towards a password is it says a series of letter in the 'LM Pdw 2' column...but that don't work either.

I still don't get how a password got installed...No one in the house knows how to even set one up, other than me.

Delvis · 7 Oct 2008 at 16:46

WILD9 said:
This doesnt tell you the current password it lets you set another or just clear the password altogether. If it has drivers for you disk controller, which it almost certainly will, id be very surprised if it didnt work. Dont forget to follow the defaults and save your changes at the end.

No joy, that's three disks gone now

Kinda thought this would happen as the other didn't work, and stated no password was set...Even though it asks for one.

It says "Specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted", even though it's not in a domain, well, maybe a default one or something?

Getting silly now