Trying to use old HD in a new computer and to boot up from this HD. Got advice to reinstall XP with the Repair option to be able to keep installed drivers, programs etc. Xp install program requires administrators password. Being a lone wolf I have never used the adminisnrator function and have given may name as a password but to no awail.
Could you help me. Greatful for any tips or tricks to achive this.
Ronald

you'll have to ask the person who owned the hard drive

we on the site can not give information on bypassing passwords

Originally Posted by RonaldEleven

Trying to use old HD in a new computer and to boot up from this HD. Got advice to reinstall XP with the Repair option to be able to keep installed drivers, programs etc. Xp install program requires administrators password. Being a lone wolf I have never used the adminisnrator function and have given may name as a password but to no awail.
Could you help me. Greatful for any tips or tricks to achive this.
Ronald

To ask the previous owner of the Harddrive for the password would be to ask myself. I´m the only owner there has ever been. Due to an unfortunate accident I wrecked the motherboard of my old computer, so I moved the undamaged HD to a new computer but cannot boot up from my old HD. Windows XP is already installed on the HD already onboard and the only way to have the computer boot up from my old HD would be to reinstall XP but with the repair option. That´s the advice I have got.

But how ddo I fix the password problem? Nobody seems to know?
Ronald

hav eyou got data on the old drive you require? the way to get that is to set this hard drive as a slave and remove the data.

if you require nothing on the old drive have you tried formatting the drive and doing a clean install?

Thank you brain_damage for your reply. I have everything I have gathered during the past 5 years on this old drive including drivers to the HP printer, Epson scanner etc ( drivers I cannot find at the present, because I have recently moved and everything here in this new house is chaos at the present )
That´s why I´m so anxious to get the computer boot up from the old drive and that´s why I have set it as master. If I set it as slave I can access the old drive but then I have to reinstall most applications.
And start over with a clean Outlook Express. Etcetera. Many months of work getting back the old functionality.
Perhaps that´s where I´ll end up after all?

one reason why it could be not wanting to boot, is a different motherboard so all different drivers etc.

what was the original PC it was in and what PC are you trying to us it it now?

I've just recovered from the same problem by trial and error (new HDD you see).

The Administrator problem usually occurs even after an incomplete re/install

Its normally blank as default - so if you type nothing at all and hit enter, it should work. If not usually this requires a reinstall like I've just done, OR if you have another user account - when the box comes up as Admin and asking you for the password, hit Ctrl+Alt+Del twice quickly and another box appears where you can enter in a different username you previously have setup with its password and XP will let you in as usual.

OR if you made a change during setup to the Admin password it will be different from the default. Remember when you install XP, it asks you towards the end for an Admin password to choose. If you left that blank, it'll be blank - i.e. nothing is to be written, just hit enter.

If you haven't set up a username logon and password beforehand and you don't know the Admin password then reboot, hit F8 after the Power On Self Test and you will get into a menu where you can choose how to start Windows. Choose SafeMode or SafeMode with Networking and you should be allowed into your Windows. Then go into Control Panel and change or setup a username profile so you can get into normal Windows through that. This is one way around it.


I've just recovered from 32 repair install and 4 full format and reinstalls, encountering a plethora of problems in the way with three computers. So I've learnt a fair bit the hard way without assistance. Thus I'm kinda familiar with it as its fresh right now in here.

Hope it helps!