Re: PC Recovery - XP MCE accounts ? Procedure warning
- From: Ben Myers <ben_myers@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:11:13 -0500
- Bobb - wrote:
I have 2 yr old Dv6113US laptop with XP MCE. Used PC Recovery to reinstall without reformatting ( to preserve the data on disc). Went fine and when rebooting it asked me for UsernameQuick! Just in case, burn yourself a copy of Petter Nordahl-Hagen's wonderful "NT" Password Editor. Indispensible in messing around with NTFS userids and passwords.
I entered my 'old username'. Bad move.
I thought when it prompted for username it was THEN gonna ask me for password for my original account.
Wrong - it created a new account with same name.
In Docs and Settings I now see
Administrator
and
Bob
(those were the old accounts)
and now
"Bob.laptop "
But just one login account in User accounts - Bob - which is really Bob.laptop
HP specific QUESTIONS:
1. Even though old accounts still "on the drive" XP doesn't "know about them". So I cannot reuse those accounts ?
If so, I'm very surprised that it didn't prompt for admin account password ( like actual XP install would)
I don't mind / saved all files prior to recovery , but I just thought "Recovery" meant recover.
2. Disc mgmt now shows a 1 gb "unknown partition" at start of disk. I don't THINK it was there before but it must have been - right ? SP3 failed a few times and once I saw it extracting to a drive I:, which I do not have - maybe used a part of disk for virtual ? Where'd the space come from ? Should I delete partition ?
3. During one reboot , before BIOS message, I pressed Quickplay key and I saw
" The last attempt to boot failed..."
" Delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu"
" Continue"
Which to choose ?
A Google search showed many msft hits and told me to choose Delete. I did so. What did that do?
Is THAT the 1gb partition ?
=========
Note - when restoring and you want to try another restore point, make sure to UNDO LAST RESTORE prior to restoring again - otherwise it creates duplicates of files/folders leaving you with
filename.xyz
filename.xyz (2)
filename.xyz (3) etc
AND filling up your drive with unwanted files.
background:
I have a DV6113US laptop that got hosed when I installed AVG8 a while back. ( Some XP functions/services showed errors, network - advanced tab which normally shows firewall info, showed WMI corrupted) ... ). I uninstalled it - and FORGOT to install an alternative ! While on a trip, at hotel I was copying files from camera to PC and - unnoticed - connected to wireless. I opened IE and got infected with something - lots of pop-ups to load some AV app... I cleaned pc up a bit and went about my trip. Error log showed a few items but nothing serious.
When I got home, I tried a few things to correct WMI errors and then figured - let me install SP3 and maybe that will 'fix it'. I did so and - bingo - network tab works OK. Great. I later checked event log and saw lots of errors ( different too numerous to mention). I started troubleshooting them and making progress, but tedious. One of the errors was related to XP MCE and msft recommended a few specific updates. After that event log showed MCE player corrupt . Rathole approaching.
I used XP System Restore to go back to restore point previous to AVG8 install. The procedure went fine and when done it showed that one "file had to be renamed to preserve .." and I ended up with an AVI and an AVI (2) folder on my desktop ( the AVI (2) was a copy). Rebooted and after trying a while I was aware that some processes/services didn't work/ start on their own ( COM+ , Removable Storage etc) . SP3 install failed.
Chose Bootlog from boot menu - no bootlog.txt anywhere !! ??
Did another System Restore back to earlier date - still issues. Reboot, log on as admin ( in case account issue), Restore again. Now when it showed "file had to be renamed to preserve .." I clicked 'Details' box and now saw 50-75 files folders with filename.(2), (3), (4).
I thought if I restored to Sept 15 , then Sept 8, Aug 30 , I would be overwriting the earlier data. WRONG .So each time I restored to earlier date when Restore put back "as it was then", it made new versions of files - renaming what was on the drive. So, I started with a pothole and now have a pit. Well, I crossed my fingers and tried it again. I chose " UNDO LAST CHANGE" checking to see if I could backtrack. The restore screens looked as is it was fine. 45 minutes later, when I clicked continue - thinking it worked fine, I got a screen telling me "not enough room on drive". ( That's when I noticed the dup versions using up disk space). Boot XP again - log in. Delete stuff to make room. Restore again " UNDO LAST CHANGE" . 45 minutes later - " Restore point corrupt , choose another". Except no valid dates offered. Calendar only shows November and no valid restore point as an option. After a day of trying, I used transfer wizard to copy all my stuff to external drive and used PC Recovery - now the account questions. HP website vague about all of this. This isn't an important pc for me - just use while traveling, but this has been a learning experience - not a good one. I couldn't find any documentation for screen shots/walk-throughs/ explanations of choices. If anyone has pointers I'd appreciate them.
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/
Next, get yourself the tools to create your own Ultimate Boot CD, which can be used to manipulate NTFS folders and stuff without concern for the usual NTFS proections... Ben Myers
.
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