Robert said:
Hello,
My wife was given a laptop PC from her work. When the laptop was given to
us, in network settings it was connected to a domain. I selected to
disconnect from the domain and instead join a workgroup. After restarting
the PC it will no longer accept her username and password to start windows.
Is there anyways to recover from this? I cannot format the laptop and start
over ... please please someone! We need to get back into her profile so that
we may backup her files, and THEN if necessary we can boot a new windows.
You broke the domain membership and that's why you can't get on. You
have some choices:
1. Take the machine back to work and have the IT people rejoin it to the
domain. Log in and copy off your data. Obviously, this is the least
desirable option and not really necessary.
2. Boot the computer with a rescue CD such as Knoppix and retrieve the
data that way. Then do a clean install. See general information about
using Knoppix to do this below:
You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. If you want to burn CD/DVDs, use the K3b program.
http://www.knoppix.net
3. If the machine never needs to go back to work and be a member of
their domain, use NTpasswd to change the local Administrator account's
password to a blank. This will allow you to get into Windows and
retrieve the data.
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ - NTpasswd
4. Pull the drive and either slave it internally to a working XP install
or put it in an external hard drive enclosure and attach to another XP
computer and copy the data off that way. Since this is a laptop, you'll
need an adapter to do this for internal connection. An external solution
is therefore preferable.
After you get the data off, do a clean install of Windows.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand
Malke
