M
Matthew
Short story: I have an XP Home install with a corrupt registry. It has many
problems, including rebooting randomly. I would like to format the hard
drive and start over.
Because of issues, I need to format it (to NTFS) without knowing the
Administrator password. If this can be done, that answers my question. If
not, read on.
I tried to boot from the "Reinstallation CD" Dell provided, and went to the
recovery console. It asked for the Administrator password. Believe it or
not, I know what it is.
The problem is, I entered the password and it says it's the wrong one. I
booted back up, and didn't see Administrator in User Accounts. I booted in
Safe Mode, and it still wasn't there. Very strange.
Anyway, I went to Start, Run, "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes)
and reset the Administor password. (I am able to do that because I have a
second admin account.) It still wouldn't let me in to the recovery console.
I booted in Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and I saw the welcome screen with
my main user and the (hidden) Administrator user. I clicked Administrator,
entered my password and it let me in to the command prompt.
I couldn't format from there because the C: drive was in use.
Any ideas?
Matthew
problems, including rebooting randomly. I would like to format the hard
drive and start over.
Because of issues, I need to format it (to NTFS) without knowing the
Administrator password. If this can be done, that answers my question. If
not, read on.
I tried to boot from the "Reinstallation CD" Dell provided, and went to the
recovery console. It asked for the Administrator password. Believe it or
not, I know what it is.
The problem is, I entered the password and it says it's the wrong one. I
booted back up, and didn't see Administrator in User Accounts. I booted in
Safe Mode, and it still wasn't there. Very strange.
Anyway, I went to Start, Run, "control userpasswords2" (without the quotes)
and reset the Administor password. (I am able to do that because I have a
second admin account.) It still wouldn't let me in to the recovery console.
I booted in Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and I saw the welcome screen with
my main user and the (hidden) Administrator user. I clicked Administrator,
entered my password and it let me in to the command prompt.
I couldn't format from there because the C: drive was in use.
Any ideas?
Matthew