I have a Dell desktop with Windows XP. When I turn on my computer, the Windows XP loading screen appears (with the blue loading bar), but then the screen goes black and never loads my desktop. My recovery disk boots and gives me the "Welcome to Setup" screen. When I hit ENTER to try to repair, it brings me straight to the screen that asks to create or delete partitions. If I hit "R" to recover, my Administrator password is no longer set to [blank] (in the past, I've just hit ENTER). I've also tried booting in VGA mode, Safe Mode, Safe Mode with the prompting screen, Debugging Mode, Last Known Good Configuration, etc, but it always ends up at a black screen.
I've read that there are ways to load Windows by copying and deleting system files using DOS mode within the "R" recovery console, but I can't get that far without first changing my admin password.
I realize formatting may be inevitable, but are there any tricks to either (1) change my admin password without loading Windows, or (2) repairing Windows with the recovery disk without clearing my C: partition? Do I have to delete partition C: to install a new OS on it? Or would that not allow me to access my files anyway? All I want to do is get my files off the drive before formatting, if possible.