Someone has forgot/lost their password and can't log on to and access Windows XP. I've tried several ways to bypass that but to no avail. Does anyone have a rescue disk or recovery disk? Would appreciate borrowing one or buying one from you. Any advice will also be appreciated. Thanks, all. I'm looking forward to seeing you at training camp and at tailgates this fall.
This works very well but you'll have wait 3 days for the password if you want it for free.Worth the wait IMO. Link
if you need to access your hd during those times you should use a live cd like bartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
You could also reset it instead of recovering it. http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ There is a bootdisk with an utility to reset the password. Watch the WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! If used on users that have EFS encrypted files, and the system is XP or Vista, all encrypted files for that user will be UNREADABLE! and cannot be recovered unless you remember the old password again If you don't know if you have encrypted files or not, you most likely don't have them. (except maybe on corporate systems) Lots of more info about the Forgetting the Admin Password problem here: http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm
Mentioning the "several ways to bypass that" which you have tried would have been helpful information. XP Home by default has an "Administrator" account installed without a password that can only be reached in safe mode. From that account, the main account passwords can be reset. Failing that getting an ERD Commander CD from the usual file sharing methods would work nicely. ERD can even rewrite the SID.