Access Data of a Password Protected User in Windows XP in Case the PC Fails to Boot

You may come across a situation in which your windows XP PC fails to reboot, and the most accepted solution to that problem is to re-format the Hard Disk. Before formatting, you should backup your files. If your computer is password protected, you won't be able to access them from outside, so here is a method for getting around this.

Steps

  1. Boot the machine from Windows XP bootable CD.
  2. At the setup screen, select R to repair using Recovery Console.
  3. Now the console program will prompt you to select the Windows folder (eg. C:\WINDOWS) where the Windows is installed (you need to enter a number from the list of folders shown to you).
  4. Type 'HELP' (without single quotes) and press enter for available commands. This is like a DOS program, but some features are not available.
  5. Change the current directory to the user's directory where you want to backup. Type 'CD "C:\Documents and Settings\X"' (without single quotes) and press enter. Where X is the username.
  6. Now the current directory will change to "C:\Documents and Settings\X".
  7. Now change the directory to Desktop by entering 'CD Desktop' (without single quotes) and press enter to go to the desktop folder.
  8. Type 'DIR' (Without single quotes) and press enter, you will be listed all the available files in Desktop.
  9. Type 'COPY a.doc D:\BACKUP' (without quotes) and press enter, where a.doc is a file available in Desktop and the folder D:\BACKUP available to copy the files.
  10. As in step 7,8,9,10 you can backup other folders like "My Documents", "My Music", etc.
  11. Note that you cannot use wildcards for COPY. I.e, you cannot copy all the files in a folder at once. You must copy one file by one.

Using an Ubuntu Live CD

  1. Change the boot settings. Restart Computer and change the Boot Settings to read from Optical Drive before the HDD. Then Insert the "Ubuntu Live CD" (free open source download) and Restart the Computer.
  2. Run the disc. Run "Ubuntu Live" without installing Ubuntu onto the Hard Disc.
  3. Access the files. Access the Windows Files on the HDD using the Ubuntu operating system.
  4. Make sure to be thorough. Scavenge through important Files, Documents, and possibly other External Drive Sources.
  5. Save files to an external source. Save all important files and documents onto a safe external device or burn them to a disc, if you have more than one drive.
  6. Change the boot settings again. Restart the Computer, change Boot Settings back to Read HDD first again.
  7. Reformat the drive. Reformat your HDD using Windows Setup Disc. Or, "FDisc" if you have no Windows Disc (also free open source download).
  8. Good Luck! This should solve the problem.

Using a Second Computer

  1. Be ready. If you feel comfortable handling computer hardware and have another computer available, you can have full access to the information by connecting the hard disk to another computer. This section assumes that you have some basic knowledge of computer hardware.
  2. Shut down your computer and disconnect everything. Pull out the power, monitor cables, PS/2 and USB devices, the speakers, etc. All cables and external devices must be removed.
  3. Open up the computer case.
  4. Locate the hard disk.
  5. Disconnect the power and IDE/Serial ATA cables.
  6. Either mount the drive to another computer or use an IDE/Serial ATA to USB device. Be sure to set the jumper to the correct setting, for now you may want to set it to "slave".
  7. Boot up the second computer and log in. Copy the information you want to save.
  8. Put the drive back in the original computer and wipe everything, then reinstall Windows as usual.

Tips

  • Before doing this, try changing the password to blank so that you can access the data from another machine to easily drag and drop to copy your data.
  • It is possible to use xcopy command in order to copy all content from a folder.

Warnings

  • Any data not backed up will be permanently deleted when you re-format the hard drive, so make sure you back up any thing you want to keep.

Things You'll Need

  • A bootable Windows XP CD

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