I have a laptop running Windows NT for which I have forgotten the
administrator password. Is there any way to reboot the machine and
install Windows XP on it? If so, please describe.

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Clarification of Question by ukworker-ga on 14 Aug 2003 01:45 PDT

Full answer would spell out at least three different ways to achieve
this in full detail, including source for code required and potential
glitches.

Thanks for the comments, though.

Hello: 
  The easiest solution is to blank the Windows NT password, log into
it again, backup your sensitive data and install Windows XP, this
handy utility
has *saved* me more than once ;-)
 
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk 
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html 
 
Use the ISO, you burn it and you can boot from it: 
 
ISO 
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/cd030426.zip 
 
Once you boot, there is a simple wizard which will let you to blank
the admin password, so you can log in again with no password and setup
your own.
 
Regards.

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Request for Answer Clarification by ukworker-ga on 16 Aug 2003 06:11 PDT

What's the ISO?

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Request for Answer Clarification by ukworker-ga on 16 Aug 2003 06:13 PDT

Also, I would appreciate a bit more of a "user friendly" explanation.
Assume I have limited experience with these matters (as well as no CD
burning device). Thanks.

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Clarification of Answer by joseleon-ga on 16 Aug 2003 06:48 PDT

Hello, ukworker:
  Sorry if the answer was cryptic, I will try to do it better now. To
reset to blank the password of your system you need to follow these
steps:
  
-Download this file, it's a floppy image:
 http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bd030426.zip  

-Download also this file, it's a utility to copy the image to a
floppy:
 http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/rawrite2.zip 
 
"The unzipped image (bdxxxxxx.bin) is a block-to-block representation
of the actual floppy, and the file cannot simply be copied to the
floppy. Special tools must be used to write it block by block. For
Dos, win95/98 & NT, use rawrite2.exe or some other imagewriter:

rawrite2 -f bd??????.bin -d A:
Replace ?????? with version number."

-Now you have a bootable floppy, insert it into your drive A: and
reboot your computer.
-The system will start from the floppy and you will get a menu which
will allow you to blank your Windows NT password

The complete process is at the utility page, it would be nice if you
read it from top to bottom before start:

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

And check the FAQ:

FAQ
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/faq.html

I hope this time is clearer, and don't hesitate to request for any
clarification.

Regards.

Worked like a charm. Thanks!

there are several ways to do this.  

One way is to go into your laptop's setup and change your boot options
to make your cd the first boot device. Then, put in the WindowsXP cd
and boot the laptop. The setup portion of WindowsXp will ask you if
you want to install over the existing partition and you should answer
yes.

If you need to recover stuff from your WinNT installation:

1) Obtain and install ntfs-dos, which will give you read-only access
to your harddrive from a bootable floppy 
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/NTFSDOS.shtml

2) Grab the SAM file in \winnt\system32\config\ and obtain the utility
l0phtcrack http://www.atstake.com/research/lc/index.html

l0phtcrack can recover your WinNT password