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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
Boot the machine from Windows XP bootable CD.
At the setup screen, select R to repair using Recovery Console.
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).
Type 'HELP' (without single quotes) and press enter for available commands. This is like a DOS program, but some features are not available.
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.
Now the current directory will change to "C:\Documents and Settings\X".
Now change the directory to Desktop by entering 'CD Desktop' (without single quotes) and press enter to go to the desktop folder.
Type 'DIR' (Without single quotes) and press enter, you will be listed all the available files in Desktop.
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.
As in step 7,8,9,10 you can backup other folders like "My Documents", "My Music", etc.
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.
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.
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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Latest page update: made by rahuldutt1
, Jun 27 2007, 7:53 AM EDT
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| varun38917 | What if..... | 0 | Mar 4 2009, 3:29 PM EST by varun38917 | ||
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Thread started: Mar 4 2009, 3:29 PM EST
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what if we some data on drive "c:\data\" we can't acsses this data by doing above....
we better option is to repair xp.. |
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| Anonymous | thanks alot | 1 | Oct 19 2008, 9:25 AM EDT by arpitkhandelwal | ||
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Thread started: Aug 17 2007, 7:48 PM EDT
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i was face same problem i will try now to fix it if i success i will write to you
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| faisal045 | any idea please help!!! | 0 | May 2 2008, 1:41 PM EDT by faisal045 | ||
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Thread started: May 2 2008, 1:41 PM EDT
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Hey I tried to follow the steps but soon after inserting the number for the windows folder it asks for admin password I ignore it by pressing enter. I get to see C:\WINDOWS. Its very confusing to go to C: / but somehow I did it then from here I type CD C:\documents and settings\Myusername and it says invalid…. I have no idea what’s wrong and will I be able to copy my files before I can format my drive. Please help…
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