Computer help please...

[Tone C]

We got given an old computer (almost never used tbh,disk drive still almost empty and only original programs on it).

Now it runs Vista (yea,old like I said) I know Vista isn't supported any more but we want to use it as a PC for the daughter to do school work upon and free up the other PC.However we can't access into the PC proper,the guy who had it,set up a user account and what not and can't remember passwords or similar....And I can't figure out how to access it.

Now I am quite happy to do whatever it takes to set up a new account on it and let my daughter use that one as a Administrator or even set up Ubuntu or something similar if that's they way round it.

Oh,yea,no support or reinstallation disks.

Any advice Sherdoggers?

 

[Uptown Swinger]

Have you tried blowing into the cartridge?

 

[AncientEnemy]

If you restart in safe mode it should give you the option to login as administrator

 

[Tone C]

Have you tried blowing into the cartridge?

Yea and I even pulled the steam driven motor...

 

[Uptown Swinger]

Yea and I even pulled the steam driven motor...

hmmmmm

You're probably going to need to clean the floppy disk drive
with an alcohol soaked q-tip.

 

[chanwahyaoh]

You need to create a GUI interface using Visual Basic and see if you can track an IP address

 

[Chules]

Not sure how to help on this, but I done a quick search for you:



This has alot of views on youtube (400k+) and it could prove to be of some help.

Goodluck getitng it working.

 

[BoogerDawson]

There's a free CD that you can download, Hiren's BootCD, that has a password reset utility. It may be a program called CHNTPW.

I also use puppy linux and have downloaded the chntpw utility and installed it on a USB drive. There are some youtube tutorials on this.

 

[Tone C]

hmmmmm

You're probably going to need to clean the floppy disk drive
with an alcohol soaked q-tip.

You need to create a GUI interface using Visual Basic and see if you can track an IP address

Hmmm.....

 

[Abortedone]

just use ubuntu

 

[Diktaattori]

Now it runs Vista ..

Burn it with fire.

 

[Tone C]

Burn it with fire.

I know,we use windows 7 and I don't like Vista but it was free and for a 12 year old it's perfectly adequate.And no,I am not posting photos of her before anyone suggests it.:icon_chee

 

[RoryFan]

Just download a copy of windows 7 and a program called win2flash then put a new copy of windows on there using a memory stick.

 

[Goodfoot]

Here's a shot that costs nothing and is fairly easy to do.

Reboot, repeatedly tap the F8 key to access the safe mode menu, choose any of the safe modes, i prefer safe mode w/networking.
you should be given the choice to login as Admin or any other user, chose Admin, try password Admin or no password at all. Usually this gets left as default. So you should be able to login as Admin.
Once logged in as Admin create any number of admin accounts or elevate the priviledges of your current account so that you can add/remove sw at your leisure.
YMMV good luck.

If none of that works try a password recovery tool http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm

 

[Kuvasz]

Konboot also allows password bypassing.

 

[the ax murderer]

I can PM you a code for Windows 7 if you need it.