Need help with administrator password / recovery installation

[Dogma72]

Hi,

I'm a new user here.

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 running on Win XP SP2.

I did something stupid a couple of days ago and now i find myself up poop creek.

Essentially what happened is I installed a Bittorrent client to my laptop to try and download something that i could not find commercially available.  I didn't have time to wait for the whole download so i cancelled and uninstalled the Bittorrent client.

After the removal of this client i found that i no longer had any programs listed underneath "Start --> All Programs".  The programs are still there in their appropriate directories.

I have searched the internet on this one and have found that the recommended advice has been to check for virii and then perform a repair installation of win XP.

I am here in Bangladesh and I brought with me a winXP cdrom.  I booted from this CD-ROM; hit "R"; selected "1" and then was asked for the administrators password. Well, i don't have an administrative password within the "Users" function in the control panel.  So, I have to assume that this is a password that would have been required to be entered when winXP was installed on this system?? It has been a while so, i cannot remember whether or not I was prompted for a password.

Could anyone help clarify this? What password is windows looking for? How can i find this password?  (I.e. is there anything short of formatting my hard drive and starting from scratch (not an option right now, i'm in Bangladesh and i need my laptop up).

Best regards,

Wesley McKenzie

[ale52]

By default the Administrator password is blank. 

Another option is to use System Restore and restore back to a day prior to your Bit Torrent install.

Alan <>< 

[patio]

I agree with Alan...try just hitting Enter when prompted.

[Dogma72]

ok -

I apologize for not stating this when i originally posted.  But, when i was prompted for a password, I did in fact in hit <enter>.  The repair would not go forward.

I did try to do a restore prior to the date of the Bittorrent install, however, it did not solve the issue.  I will try to go back a little further and see what happens.

PS - could one of you guys fill me in on what actually happens during a repair?  I am stuck in Bangladesh about 10k miles from home and this laptop is my only means of communication to my wife etc. (plus i'm going to be out here for almost another month).

Best regards,

Wes

[Dogma72]

okay - issue is now resolved. 

thanks very much for the help.

The solution ended up being going a little further back on the system restore.

I lost one program that i had downloaded / installed - but.. that's a small pittance to having everything up and running properly again.

Thanks again!

Wes

[ale52]

Glad we were able to help 

Alan <><