XP Administrator Password for Recovery

[phlyx]

I am trying to help a friend whose daughter's PC (a Sony Vio) is having serious problems. The PC continuously reboots and scans the hard drive. When I boot to an XP boot CD and try to go to Recovery Console it requests the Administrator password and they have no clue as to what that might be and cannot recall every being prompted to enter something. They bought the thing bundled with the OS on it (I believe) and don't enter a password when they fire it up. They are trying to see if they can locate the CD's that came with it but is there any way anyone knows of to get into Recovery Console without this?

Thanks!!!

~ Phlyx ~

 

[bcastner]

I hope it has a floppy disk:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

You should try first:
Username: Administrator
Password: just hit enter

Check too the VAIO website to see if they do anything different.

The "normal" reason for this is that the pre-install of the OS was pre-Service Pack 1. The user updates to Service Pack 1. Because of changes in the SAM as a result, a blank or empty Administrator password no longer works to access Recovery Console. The reason to use the floppy setup disks to access Recovery Console is that a hotfix has been applied to circumvent this issue.

I strongly suggest that before you leave that site that you install formally Recovery Console. At the moment, if you apply Service Pack 2 without pre-installing Recovery Console you will not be able to install it later.

I also strongly suggest that you use Group Policy and regedit, to make two important changes to Recovery Console for the future:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310497

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1289/

This avoids the password issues for Recovery Console in the future, and puts you in good shape to use the feature under Service Pack 2.

Trust me, someday you will want to thank me for this advice.

Best to you, phlyx.
Bill Castner

 

[phlyx]

Thanks Bill. I did try with no password and it didn't like it (nor did it like the next two passwords I tried and it locked me out and then after a couple more re-boots gave up for now). I will try to get to those sites this weekend and see what happens and hopefully they find their CD's so I have the actual stuff from Sony. Have no clue what SP they have (if any) but hopefully I'll find out.

The normal sequence is the normal boot, the Windows XP startup scrolling bar, the disk check, then I get what looks like BSD for a fraction of a second and then hard reboot. Is there any way to pause that BSD to maybe see what is actually going on? That would be nice. Had the same situation with my daughter's laptop (or as she was saying at the time, her "lab-top") and I managed to set up my digital camera and take a picture right when it flashed and then blow it up and read it. :O)

Technology... gotta luv it...

~ Phlyx ~

 

[bcastner]

Only XP Service Pack 2 offers a boot menu choice of doing a boot with the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) information revealed. Try accessing the boot option menu by hitting F8 early and often during startup. It might take a try or two until your finger tapping timing is correct.

Check the boot order in the BIOS. If using the floppy access method, you want the floppy drive first in boot order in the BIOS. You can alway later reset this. I leave, even though it creates a small lag, my boot order set to CD Rom drive first, hard drive second.

But try hitting F8 early and often. Once you install Recovery Console you will be given a choice (configurable) of either Recovery Console or normal boot.