Login does not recognize the password

Hello,

I got my wife a HP Pavillion Notebook Vista Ultimate (w/all updates as of
last night). She went through setup and heres a funny thing since reading
through here, it didn't ask her to make a password recovery disk. She's
installed everything she's needed and shutdown last night. Anyway, she tried
to login today but the system doesnt recognize her password.

Any help is greatly appreachated!

--
I am different-I knew that long ago. I give everyone the trust and respect
that''''s due to them, as a human and possible friend. They build or tear
away at that by what they say and do. Night`Wolf ;

"ACTD_Randy" <ACTDRandy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9198BA65-0273-4BAB-8EE9-8D6900636342@microsoft.com...

> Hello,
>
> I got my wife a HP Pavillion Notebook Vista Ultimate (w/all updates as of
> last night). She went through setup and heres a funny thing since reading
> through here, it didn't ask her to make a password recovery disk. She's
> installed everything she's needed and shutdown last night. Anyway, she
> tried
> to login today but the system doesnt recognize her password.
>
> Any help is greatly appreachated!
>
> --
> I am different-I knew that long ago. I give everyone the trust and
> respect
> that''''s due to them, as a human and possible friend. They build or tear
> away at that by what they say and do. Night`Wolf ;

The correct term is 'password reset' disk. It is actually just a small
file, about 1.5 KB, that is written to the root folder of the floppy/CD/USB
thumbdrive, as well as some info written to the hard drive. That file can
be copied to any other removable media's root folder. When you start the
short process of creating this disk, it asks for the password for the
current account. If it didn't, anyone could create the 'password reset'
disk and get into your account.

I think 'not asking' to make a password may be a common trait of all
HP/Compaq computers. My Compaq desktop and a friend's Compaq laptop also
did not ask.

These computers do not include CD/DVDs to reinstall Vista or any other
software than comes with the computer. It is all on the hard drive in a
separate but not hidden primary partition and is typically about 6 gigabytes
in size. After you have completed the initial boot-up, it seems to me that
the system should also have asked if you want to make a set of recovery
disks. My system did NOT ask me, but I figured it out for myself. This
will require at least 7 to 10 CDs or 1 to 2 DVDs or 1 DVD-DL, depending on
your particular system. You can only make one set of recovery disks. If
your computer can only write CDs, but you have a USB DVD-DL writer, you can
possibly disable the internal CD writer, reboot with the USB DVD-DL writer
plugged in, and create the one recovery DVD-DL. I have only tried this on
my Compaq desktop and it worked well. When the system is done creating
these recovery disks, it may ask if you want to create a diagnostic CD. It
is probably a good idea to do that too.

In any case, if you don't mind having to redo all the updates and anything
else you may have done since the first boot, you can probably use the
built-in system recovery process. For me, it is accessible by hitting F11
during boot-up. I believe it uses the information in the second primary
partition to put the first primary partition very close to the state it was
in when you took the computer out of the box. I do not know if doing this
would allow you to make another set of recovery disks. I have not tried
this yet.

-Paul Randall

I have the same problem (HP Compaq nx 7300). No one appears to realise that I
can't get past the Vista (Business) log in page so I can't do anything at all
on the computer - I am completely locked out. I have done the F11 system
recovery which is supposed to put it back to factory condition - I am still
asked for my password. HP ignore requests for help. Desperate for help.



"ACTD_Randy" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I got my wife a HP Pavillion Notebook Vista Ultimate (w/all updates as of
> last night). She went through setup and heres a funny thing since reading
> through here, it didn't ask her to make a password recovery disk. She's
> installed everything she's needed and shutdown last night. Anyway, she tried
> to login today but the system doesnt recognize her password.
>
> Any help is greatly appreachated!
>
> --
> I am different-I knew that long ago. I give everyone the trust and respect
> that''''s due to them, as a human and possible friend. They build or tear
> away at that by what they say and do. Night`Wolf ;

Well, if you do a search on the internet, there are quite a few number of
password recovery tools out there just free for the asking. However, after
rereading your message, you would have to have access to another computer
with a burner and internet access. I would have to wonder at this point if
Vista still uses the SAM database that XP, 2003, and 2000 use for password
storage?

"Dokki" <Dokki@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:27727F8E-E360-4FBF-BD9F-8840FC1A475D@microsoft.com...

>I have the same problem (HP Compaq nx 7300). No one appears to realise that
>I
> can't get past the Vista (Business) log in page so I can't do anything at
> all
> on the computer - I am completely locked out. I have done the F11 system
> recovery which is supposed to put it back to factory condition - I am
> still
> asked for my password. HP ignore requests for help. Desperate for help.
>
>
>
> "ACTD_Randy" wrote:
>

"Dokki" <Dokki@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:27727F8E-E360-4FBF-BD9F-8840FC1A475D@microsoft.com...

>I have the same problem (HP Compaq nx 7300). No one appears to realise that
>I
> can't get past the Vista (Business) log in page so I can't do anything at
> all
> on the computer - I am completely locked out. I have done the F11 system
> recovery which is supposed to put it back to factory condition - I am
> still
> asked for my password. HP ignore requests for help. Desperate for help.

Hi
I am glad you posted. When I bought my first laptop about 5 years ago, I
was told not to do a system restore when I mentioned to my computer guru
that I was thinking of doing a complete system restore, just to see if it
worked. Two years ago I did a restore and was happy with it, but since then
I have been very careful to ghost the hard drives of new computers before
their first boot-up, just in case. I made a bootable CD with DOS versions
of Ghost to ensure the hard drive is unaltered before ghosting. Restoring
that ghost image truely does restore the hard drive to the 'out of the box'
condition except for Vista's new Master Boot Record, which I copy/restore
with free DOS software called MbrWizd.

I have restored my Vista system from its ghost image a number of times,
trying to learn the nuances of various initial setup configurations.

Later today I hope to have time to reproduce your situation: on a fresh
system I will pretend to forget my password and do the system restore to see
if it still insists on knowing the 'forgotten' password.

Back to your problem.
I see in another thread someone recommended
Try Elcomsoft System Recovery:
http://www.elcomsoft.com/esr.html

If you try one of the password recovery packages and it works, please let us
know in this thread which one and how easy/difficult it was.

-Paul Randall

"Dokki" <Dokki@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:27727F8E-E360-4FBF-BD9F-8840FC1A475D@microsoft.com...

>I have the same problem (HP Compaq nx 7300). No one appears to realise that
>I
> can't get past the Vista (Business) log in page so I can't do anything at
> all
> on the computer - I am completely locked out. I have done the F11 system
> recovery which is supposed to put it back to factory condition - I am
> still
> asked for my password. HP ignore requests for help. Desperate for help.

I made a stab at reproducing your situation. It may not be valid because I
added another hard drive for debugging purposes and this may have shifted
drive letters so that the normal F11 system recovery process can't work
properly.

After I hit F11, Windows seems to start from some hybernation mode, and soon
a single window appeared, with 6 options to click and two buttons to click:

Title Bar: System Recovery Options
Choose a recovery tool
Operating sysem: HP Recovery Manager on (Unknown) Recovery
1) Startup Repair
Automatically fix problems that are preventing Windows from starting
2) System Restore
Restore Windows to an earlier point in time
3) Windows Complete PC Restore
Restore your entire computer from a backup
4) Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool
Check your computer for memory hardware errors
5) Command Prompt
Open a command prompt window
6) Restore Application
Recovery Manager 32 bits
Shutdown and Restart buttons

I was expecting an option to return the system to 'out of the box'-like
condition.

I tried clicking the fifth item to open a Command Prompt.
It did, with the title bar containing:
Administrator X:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
The version is displayed as Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]

Perhaps this 'recovery' version of windows is similar to or the same as
something I've heard of called WinPE, or Windows Preinstall Environment.
The range of DOS commands available seemed limited, but I was able to run
some Windows programs, like WordPad and Paint by changing to the directory
they are in (on another drive, not this drive X and running them. I was
also able to plug in a USB thumb drive and write info to it. Perhaps from
this command window you could create another administrator account. I just
don't know whether that administrator account would still exist when you
boot the normal way.

Is this what you see when you hit F11 during bootup?

Hopefully a guru with HP Vista experience will jump in here with some
suggestions.

-Paul Randall

"Dokki" <Dokki@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:27727F8E-E360-4FBF-BD9F-8840FC1A475D@microsoft.com...

>I have the same problem (HP Compaq nx 7300). No one appears to realise that
>I
> can't get past the Vista (Business) log in page so I can't do anything at
> all
> on the computer - I am completely locked out. I have done the F11 system
> recovery which is supposed to put it back to factory condition - I am
> still
> asked for my password. HP ignore requests for help. Desperate for help.
>
>
>
> "ACTD_Randy" wrote:
>

I've played with the F11 System Recovery again.

After removing the hard drive I had added, it is possible to get close to
'out of the box' condition, but the prompts to get there are confusing.

On hitting F11 (many times) during bootup, I get a screen saying Windows is
loading files, with a progress bar below it. A short while after the
progress bar is complete, I get the small Microsoft starting up picture for
a short while, then a window titled Recovery Manager. I assume this is a
program running in the Windows Preinstall Environment.

The Window says:
Welcome to the Recovery Manager
Use this program to recover your computer to its original factory condition.
For additional information, refer to your documentation.
And there are four buttons:
Advanced Options, Back (greyed out), Next, and Cancel.

Since my intent is to get to original factory condition or at least back to
where I have the choice of what password, if any, to use, I click next.

The screen now says:
Microsoft System Restore
Microsoft System Restore uses restore points to return your system to an
earlier point in time.
Would you like to launch Microsoft System Restore?
Yes
No

It is not obvious to me that this really means: if you want to eventually
get to a screen that gets the system to original factory condition, choose
No.

Choosing No brings up a screen that says:
System recovery
System recovery is a procedure for restoring your computer to its original
factory shipped condition.
Would you like to perform a system recovery?
Yes
No

At last, a screen that explicitly tells me that choosing yes will move me
toward my goal.

Choosing Yes brings up a screen where you can choose to back up files first,
or recover without backing up your files.

The backup choice leads to a screen that allows you to check which
categories to back up. The files are backed up to removable media. If
insufficient media is installed, it will tell you, but it does not tell you
how much media is required.

If you select the recover without backing up your files option and click
next, the system immediately starts reformatting the first partition on the
drive, and then adds files and folders to make it look similar to how it was
out of the box.

On reboot, the screens during 'first boot' are significantly different that
the actual 'out of the box' first boot, but you will eventually get to the
point of entering the first-user name & password.

-Paul Randall