Intro & Query

[knoenf2bdangrus]

Greetings Master Geeks et al of PC-Dom! After a 7 year hiatus I recently returned to unlimited admistrator status on my home pc. I have spent the past 6 months or so discovering contents of the system, mostly by accident. The system (Dell Dimension 8200, Windows XP Home) was unstable which I think may be at least partially attributed to the Previous Administrators (PA) tinkering and program additions. At some point in time I lost my CD-R and later Outlook. Instead of searching for repair techniques, I thought it might be a bright idea to try a Windows Restore and, of course lost everything. I tried to re-install Windows, but it a: didn't like the password (resolved) and b: wanted a version of MS Office I do not have (unresolved). OK, ya'll finished laughing yet?

Deciding that I wanted to upgrade the HD anyway, I installed a new drive as Master and the old drive as Slave. This seemed to work, I have all of my drives back, including the CD-R, and I can peek around the old drive, but the PA's Documents & Settings Profile is locked (Access Denied). While I'm pleased with my new and improved system with the quiet, fat new drive; I'd reallly like to get some stuff off of the clunky old system.

Could those much wiser in these matters assist me with my dilemma, and remember "baby talk" :confused:

Humbly submitted

[Whyzman]

Welcome to the PC Guide Forums!

A similar recent thread prompted this response from Paleo Pete our most tenured moderator... There are ways to reset passwords, but the problem we have with that is we have no way of knowing whether the person asking for that information is legitimate, or trying to get into someone else's computer for malicious purposes or just as a "prank"'. That puts us in a bad spot, we'd like to help, but it's not a good idea to hand out information or software that's best not getting into the hands of anyone but qualified system administrators who have a definite need for it. That kind of thing can be really dangerous, it can not only get you back into your computer but anyone else's machine you happen to have access to. Then if revenge is on the agenda, we just helped it happen...so someone else is here asking how to get back into his computer.

The password protection on NT based systems is pretty good, simply deleting the pwl file won't work like win9x did, so the best solution I can feel safe giving you is to reinstall Windows. The utilities that can reset passwords are dangerous in the wrong hands, and we don't know whose hands it's going into...

Firewalls might cause performance problems, but they also keep other people out, which is probably how your password got reset. Online gaming sets up a direct network connection to your computer and anyone with a bit of knowledge or a good rootkit can cause real problems. Either use a good firewall in the future or once you have your system set up the way you want it make a disk image you can restore at any time without losing settings.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but we're in an uncomfortable position here, and most of us are very conscious of security and well aware that a lot of very untrustworthy people out there would love to find a way to change the password on any computer. Due to the nature of the Internet we can't be too careful when it comes to administration tools that are that dangerous.

[knoenf2bdangrus]

Ah, well I can see that, however please note that as I said, I had already resolved that situation, since it was looking for the original password that I set, not the one I had subsequently changed to. The next problem and the one that prevented me from reinstalling Windows XP was that it (WXP install) wanted a different version of MS Office that I neither had, nor should have had :confused: . The system is mine, I'm not asking to break a password - on my system or any others - I'm just trying to recover from a stupid mistake and a crashed disc like anybody else.

My apologies if I have offended...

[Paul Komski]

Since the system is yours you could try booting to safe mode and login in as administrator. Under XP-home, this allows the security tab for each folder to be made visisble. Go the the relevant folder, Rclick on it and under security see if it will let you change the ownership or other permissions.

[knoenf2bdangrus]

Thank You!! That worked quite nicely, once I figured out what I had to do, I never really messed with the security tabs before. I noted that there is someone or something identified by a number that says unknown user on some of the files... should I remove the permissions for them? I don't want to screw the system again but I don't know if the system needs that or if its something eles (or rather someone else).


I don't suppose there is anyway to recover my e-mail and addy book without the .pst files is there?

[Paul Komski]

I don't suppose there is anyway to recover my e-mail and addy book without the .pst files is there?

Where was the original pst file kept? Has it been deleted or was it somewhere else altogether?

should I remove the permissions for them?
That's up to you but just giving Admin all rights of access should be all that you need to do.

[knoenf2bdangrus]

Where was the original pst file kept? Has it been deleted or was it somewhere else altogether?

"I just don't know, Capt'n." I can't find the bloody things and am still learning what I have to do... maybe I didn't do something to make them happen in the first place? Golly, this is embarrassing! :o

[Paul Komski]

Have you tried searching all the partitions for *.pst

[knoenf2bdangrus]

The drive wasn't partitioned, but I did end up finding it. Thank you so much for your kind help. What a wonderful resource this site is!