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Windows XP Pro Login Issue

When I turned on my laptop (one i used to use at work), running XP Pro, I received an error saying that there was an IP address conflict. to resolve this error message, i changed the settings from 'this computer runs on a business network' to 'home use, not on a network', or something like that, in the 'system properties' in the control panel. it asked me to restart, so i did, but afterwards when i tried to log in, with my same user name and password, it woudln't let me. i tried going in in safe mode, but it keeps saying that there is an invalid user name and/or password. Im guessing this is because my computer is still trying to connect to a network, but i just set the settings so that it wouldn't connect to the network. so essentially i am locked out of my computer. is my only solution to use one of those dos-based password changing programs?

sirbounty

Have you tried Last Known Good?

How to access Last Known Good (LKG):
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How%20to%20access%20Last%20Known%20Good%20Configuration:

If necessary...
To restore your system to the default Administrator with no password:
Download a boot disk from here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Use the downloaded image to create the boot disk. Then boot up your system from this disk.
Now navigate to %systemroot%\system32\config on your hard drive,
Rename sam.log (by typing REN SAM.LOG SAMLOG.ORG) and rename sam.exe (by typing REN SAM.EXE SAMEXE.ORG)
Now when you boot up the password on your built-in administrator account will be blank (No password).
This solution works only if your hard drive is FAT.

ref: http://windows.about.com/library/tips/bltip115.htm

Also check this:
http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/14729/14729.html
http://www.thomasmathiesen.com/itak/html/software.html

chris25886

ASKER

thanks for answering. yes i did try the last known good configuration but that didn't work either. my hard drive is NTFS unfortunately, not FAT32.

Smith500

This is a way to crack into XP - I haven't tried it and it's fairly full-on but maybe it will help....

http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/archives/000475.html

derekcm

Was your network using a domain originally?

Derek

venishjoe

Hai,

For changing the password in DOS mode (For NTFS also) just read the articles given in the following link.

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=173

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;306214&

Hope this helps

Regards
Venish

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venishjoe

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DanniF

Hi,

What probably happened is that your computer was a member of a domain and when you changed to the workgroup the only profiles that are valid are the local ones.

If you do not know the local administrator password you are going to have to use a password cracking tool.

I recommend the last one mentioned ( http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html ) I have used this tool several times and it is very easy to use and has worked in 100% of my cases.

Hope this helps,

Daniel F.