Win XP password after new CPU?

[Restorer]

I just installed a new Barton 2500+ in my motherboard, and now Windows XP refuses to start. It loads, then displays a dialog that says, "When trying to update a password, the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct." Using the recover disk doesn't work, because it asks for my admin password, which doesn't work anymore. Has this happened to anyone when switching CPUs? Can I get around this without having to format and reinstall everything?

[TheDude]

Welcome to Xtreme!

Try clearing your CMOS jumper pins, then boot up. ;)

[Restorer]

Didn't help :(

[TheDude]

Sorry, the only thing I know will work is to install xp overtop your old install...don't reformat, just reinstall. That way you will be prompted to pick a new password. But save that for last, someone may know a better way.

Will it allow you to login in safe mode and change admin password?
If you have another hard drive, you could boot to it and recover files or change password on original hard drive.

[Restorer]

I've already tried that, and it didn't work. :(

Fortunately I did have a large chunk of unallocated space, so I've installed a new copy of XP there. Can I fix my old installation from here? Or can I copy over some file to activate this installation?

[TheDude]

It sounds like you installed another copy instead of overwriting the old one. You should be able to locate the old install and change the password, then reformat the 2nd install to get rid of it. Or you could try copying the new sam file over to replace the old one.

[Restorer]

I did both. I first installed XP over my old install - when you go into Setup, choose your current install, and hit 'R' - and when that didn't work I installed a new copy on another partition.

[TheDude]

At this point, unless you have data that you can't afford to lose, I would just go ahead and reformat the entire drive and reinstall 1 copy of windows.

[Restorer]

I see. It's a pain reinstalling everything only two weeks after I had to do it because of switching my motherboard, but if it's the only logical thing, I'll do it.

It's times like these I'm glad my main machine is a Mac.

[wespwnzu]

you could just boot into safe mode under admin, and delete your password, unless u changed default settings.

[TheDude]

wespwnzu,

I suggested that in post #4...guess it didn't work. At this point he has 2 installs on one drive, I would just do a clean fresh install to avoid problems down the road.;)

[faruquehabib]

Originally posted by Restorer
I see. It's a pain reinstalling everything only two weeks after I had to do it because of switching my motherboard, but if it's the only logical thing, I'll do it.

It's times like these I'm glad my main machine is a Mac.

i had a kernel file corrupt from i believe the lastest omega driver for my radeon, and not 2 DAYS into my newly installed os, i had to reformat the entire thing. good thing i can do a complete win XP install in 10 min and 36 sec thanks to my raptor, but all the updates and driver updates and software reloading took me 4 hours. it does suck. look into making a ghost or recovery disc, or simply get another hdd and back up the vital stuff

[Nookie420]

UGG, i feel your pain man.

I just installed 2000 pro on a nwe partition and was gonnna dual boot between it and my xp pro.

Well, i went to boot to XP pro and it give me some BS message "windows 2000 cannot start, corrupt file in C:\windows\........." and my XP is there, 2000 pro is on a different drive all together.................

So i reinstalled xp over my old install, well, that got me to boot, but after the boot screen the logon screen never appears.

and the worst thing is, i deleted my ghost image yesterday and was gonna create a new one after i got 2000 pro installled.............OMG Why me lord, why me?

so im updating my 2000 pro right now. My first experiance with dual booting has been a nightmare.

[TheDude]

With a copy of Ghost and a DVD drive, I can almost fit my entire Maxtor10GB system Drive "C" on a single backup DVD by using High Compression option. That single CD contains my OS, all the updates and my standard install group of software, like virus protection, PhotoImpact, Webwasher, etc. After a serious crash, I can be back up and running in 20 minutes easy, good as new. A good backup\recovery plan is worth whatever it costs in time and money to put into place. ;)