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How do I change the Administrator password when using the Reinstallation CD?

When the PC tries to boot into Windows home, it goes to the blue screen of death and gives me an error that says: Window cannot load the hive file or its log or alternate. It is either corrupt, damaged or missing. It then does a memory dump and reboots.
I have tried to use the Dell Reinstallation CD to repair the windows installation, but it keeps asking for the Administrator password. The PC owner did not even know he had one. We have tried every possible password that he would use, all to no avail.
Is there a way to bypass this password so I can repair the system. Last, last resort would be to reload XP.
Thank you

Otto
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johnb6767
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That is for fixing the restarting, which loks like a corrupted registry...

To remove the password prompt in the recovery console....

(first of all, did you just try hitting enter, with it blank?)

Create one of these tools.....

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

UBCD4Win
http://www.ubcd4win.com

Boot to one of those utilites above, and launch Regedit. In Regedit, eselect File>Load Hive, and navigate to the "C:\Windows\System32\Config" directory, and select the Software hive.

Create a friendly name for it and go to the following key in the loaded hive....

"Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole"

Set the SecurityLevel dword value to 1

Select File>Unload Hive, and unload it.

Exit the Booted OS, and retry the recovery console...

And FYI, this is possibly a known error...

"The password is not valid" error message appears when you log on ...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308402
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ScanR

If you want to run a repair, you need to boot to the cd itself, so you need to hit F12 when you see the dell logo and then select the optical drive option and hit enter. When you see a message to hit any key hit any key directly so that we can boot to the cd. Then it will start to load the software you will be prompted there to select R for recovery console or enter to continue w/ the installation just hit enter because we need to run the repair for windows, no need to worry because we just need to run the repair option for windows, just in case windows is still repairable. After hitting enter you will prompted to hit R for repair this time if windows is still repairable if windows is no longer repairable then you will see the list of partitions there. If you see the R option for repair just hit R and should run the repair for your windows to repair windows.
Have you tried a blank password ?

Some other methods here http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm
try to start with the xp installation cd. try the repair option (press R to do repair ----   not the one for recovery console).then when the device loading stage (GUI mode) comes,press ctrl+shift+f10, then comes one CMD window. please type "control userpasswords2".then it opens the user accounts windows.there select administrator and reset password.

thats it

try and let me know
you wont lose any program or any thing installed there.