NOT in a domain but...

[DS]

Hi,

I have an oddball problem. One of the people that I provide support for had
a problem with their XP pro.

Somehow or another, the 'system' file for the registry became corrupted. It
may have been caused by a power outage ? But anyway, upon bootup it would
give the error that '...\system was missing or corrupt'.

I ruled out a memory issue as it failed with the same file each time. In my
experience, if it was a problem with RAM, it would be a different file each
time. So following M$ suggestion's, I did a repair booting from the XP cd.

The PC now boot's and comes to a login screen. It think's that it's part of
a domain now, but it's not, it was in a workgroup. Logon is not possible
because it can't contact a domain controller. There is no option available
to logon on to 'This Computer'.

The only user available is the Administrator account and the local account
appears to have a blank password, but then it tries to authenticate with a
domain controller.

Does anyone have any ideas ?

Thanks in advance,

DS

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Do you need to use ctrl-alt-dlt to bring up the logon screen or is it just
go name/password prompt?? Ctrl-alt-dlt should give you the option to logon
to the local machine though you may first need to select the options box in
the lower right side. See if you can logon using safe mode. Other things to
try are to use a another network computer to try and access Computer
Management [you would have to logon to the remote computer with
administrator/no password since that seems to be what the target computer is
using] to see what Event Viewer is showing or event trying to access via
Remote Desktop to configure. --- Steve

 

[DS]

Do you need to use ctrl-alt-dlt to bring up the logon screen or is it
just go name/password prompt?? Ctrl-alt-dlt should give you the option
to logon to the local machine though you may first need to select the
options box in the lower right side.

2 ctl-alt-del's are required to bring up the login box. Using ERD2003
regedit, I found the ComputerName to now be MACHINENAME and attempting to
login as MACHINENAME\Administrator w/blank password won't let me on
either.

See if you can logon using safe

I've attempted safe mode w/ & w/o network support.

mode. Other things to try are to use a another network computer to try
and access Computer Management [you would have to logon to the remote
computer with administrator/no password since that seems to be what
the target computer is using] to see what Event Viewer is showing or
event trying to access via Remote Desktop to configure. --- Steve

RDT is not enabled on this PC, or I should say it wasn't before the
repair.

I'm stumped.

Thanks,

DS

 

[Steven L Umbach]

So at this point is the problem that you just don't know the administrators password?
Regular safe mode should log you onto the local computer if you know the password
unless there is some major problem. Do you get a bad password message when trying to
logon in safe mode or does it just hang, log you back out or such. It may also help
if you can copy the .evt files off of that drive and import them into Event Viewer on
a functioning XP computer to see if it gives you any clue as to the problem. If you
need a password reset program see the link below to a free ISO you can download and
burn to a cd to have a bootable password reset program that works on XP. --- Steve

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Do you need to use ctrl-alt-dlt to bring up the logon screen or is it
just go name/password prompt?? Ctrl-alt-dlt should give you the option
to logon to the local machine though you may first need to select the
options box in the lower right side.

2 ctl-alt-del's are required to bring up the login box. Using ERD2003
regedit, I found the ComputerName to now be MACHINENAME and attempting to
login as MACHINENAME\Administrator w/blank password won't let me on
either.

See if you can logon using safe

I've attempted safe mode w/ & w/o network support.

mode. Other things to try are to use a another network computer to try
and access Computer Management [you would have to logon to the remote
computer with administrator/no password since that seems to be what
the target computer is using] to see what Event Viewer is showing or
event trying to access via Remote Desktop to configure. --- Steve

RDT is not enabled on this PC, or I should say it wasn't before the
repair.

I'm stumped.

Thanks,

DS