Windows xp won't start even in safe mode

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shesells

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Visiting friends at the moment and they have a pc problem. Went to switch it on yesterday and it says there was a problem and gives the option to start in safe, log on normally or use last successful settings. No matter which you choose nothing happens. Tried the f8 trick and still won't start in safe, chose repair but it asks for an administrator password and we have no idea what that is. System is running xp professional as it was bought on a deal through work. Would prefer not to have to reinstall windows if possible. Can anyone offer any advice? Thanks
 
Have you tried selecting last good configuration or Windows restore.?
 
The fact that the owner doesn't know the admin password just sent all my red flags up.

If it was a real deal, the administrator password would be available.

Why don' they have it, exactly? And don't mention the "deal".

ONQ
 
It was genuine. I work with them and work ordered a handful of additional pcs to get a bulk discount and offered them to employees at a good rate. Totally above board. A family member set it up so i've been trying to contact them to find out. It's just weird, i've always been able to start problem pcs in safe.
 
grab a copy of ophcrack and boot from USB - it'll crack the admin password in seconds.
 
onq said:
The fact that the owner doesn't know the admin password just sent all my red flags up.

If it was a real deal, the administrator password would be available.

Why don' they have it, exactly? And don't mention the "deal".

ONQ
Click to expand...

Steady on Garda, they don't have a pc password big deal
 
re-install windows......

well, how far do you get exactly? does the BIOS load, but not the OS? I had a strange one recently, I plugged in a thumb drive, and my PC decided this was going to be the new boot device, of course there was no OS on the thumb drive, so the PC would sit there... also pull out the HDD and test it in another PC if you can, it may be fried, electrical surges, lightning strikes can make mince meat of a HDD. so check that the BIOS is using the HDD as the boot device, and check that the HDD is alive.
 
The person who set the machine up should be able to supply the password.

Failing that, there may be a "repair installation" option on the OS CD-ROM.

This option, if it exists, will also probably need that password.

ONQ
 
sustanon said:
re-install windows......

<snip>
...so check that the BIOS is using the HDD as the boot device, and check that the HDD is alive.
Click to expand...

Totally endorse this - spent a large part of last summer trying to find what I thought was a software conflict on my laptop - to no avail.

The HD had failed and there were multiple corrupt sectors - replacement was necessary, which, together with with data recovery, came to nearly a grand.

Another legitimate reason for not wanting to do a complete re-install is lack of back-ups.

Always do backups - which reminds me... - ulp!

ONQ.
 
I failed to get it sorted, really wanted to avoid re-installing Windows. As suspected, no back ups in place, these people are sporadic pc users so wouldn't have even known to do this, at the same time things like iTunes library and photos would be a pain to lose hence my reluctance to just re-install.

Repair needed password, spoke to person who installed it but they had no idea what it was. Friends calling in a friendly pc repair guy tomorrow.

Thanks for all your help anyway
 
shesells said:
Repair needed password, spoke to person who installed it but they had no idea what it was. Friends calling in a friendly pc repair guy tomorrow.

Thanks for all your help anyway
Click to expand...

Please keep us up-to-date , with what your pc repairs guy diagnoses .

We had a similar problem , and completely re-installed . This was worthwhile because we have no more administrator problems . Luckily everything valuable was saved on an external HD .

But surely , there must be an easier way .
 
I've found keeping information on external hard drive(s) is the best way for me.
This option becamse very affordable over the past few years and prices came within reasonable ranges per gigabyte [1€ per gigabyte or less] for drives over 200Gb.
More convenient but more expensive are the thumb drives which retail in the PC World in The Park in Carrickmines for under €60 for a 16Gb drive.
You can see other kinds available on
You're trading pocket-portability for cost with the thumb drives as they are far more expensive per Gb than a powere external hard drive of say 1Tb capacity.
More than one defends against the possibility of the HD AND one drive failing.
Where you have a PC and a laptop, one dedicated backup and one "spare", or "occassional major backup" is useful.
A friend uses remote encrypted backup as his method of choice, but this becomes very expensive if you have gigabytes to back up.
I have a lot of photos and drawings as well as research on every job, so the external HD is my choice.
Ideally I should have two main backups as well as the occassional backup and switch the main ones every week or two - or else have one running in a garden shed or something!
That will defend against catastrophic loss in event of a fire or theft.
I've sort of wandered off topic, but I posted this so the OP and his friends don't end up in this situation again - back up everything to a good external hard drive and reinstalling won't be a problem again.
Set it up to back up overnight and you can have an up-to-date backup.
In fact I think you can set it up to reinstall the entire OS and files from the external drive, but you should check on this and do a test before the fateful day arrives.

Anyway 'nuff from me.

FWIW

ONQ.
 
shesells said:
I failed to get it sorted, really wanted to avoid re-installing Windows. As suspected, no back ups in place, these people are sporadic pc users so wouldn't have even known to do this, at the same time things like iTunes library and photos would be a pain to lose hence my reluctance to just re-install.

Repair needed password, spoke to person who installed it but they had no idea what it was. Friends calling in a friendly pc repair guy tomorrow.

Thanks for all your help anyway
Click to expand...

shesells - before they get the PC repair people in (who I know will prob recommend a complete re-install) did you try crack the admin password ?

I have a bootable linux distro here running ophcrack which should crack any relatively simplex alphanumeric password very quickly. failing that there are a number of other options to recover the system without an install - just don't let the local computer repair person bully them into a reinstall.
 
I'm afraid not. I didn't have my laptop with me (posted from my phone) and I live several hundred miles away so couldn't create a boot disk. I was only there for just over 24 hours and we had plans for most of that so I tried what I could and had to leave it very unsatisfactorily. Looking forward to finding out what caused it....I fear a virus but hopefully not. Friends are older and not au fait about stuff like leaving the pc on for long enough for a scan to complete and/or updates to download...will teach them after this!
 
fair enough - what part of the country are they in ? also how much is the local pc repair/recovery person charging ? I often wondered if the market is large enough for dedicated data recovery work and how much clients would be prepared to recover their systems. I do it often enough for free ;)
 
Had a similar problem which was a hal.dll error. Reinstalling and booting from the new install fixed the problem. Lots of info on the internet on how to fix it if that is the problem.
Good Luck!
 
Problem with my own pc, tried to run in safe mode, & tried to run to previous settings, just getting a blank screen. Can anyone help me.

When I run the computer in safe mode i get the following message on a black screen background:

Mircrosoft (R) Windows XP (R) (Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_qfe.090206-1239: Service Pack 2)
 
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The default admin password is black. Just press enter for the password.

Most home computers won't have one set, as you need to out of your way to do.
 
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