I work at a company where a consultant left his desktop tower behind after he was done with his work. I asked the IT dept and they didn't want it and said I could take it home. The computer is an HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF and has Windows 7 Enterprise.
The problem is the computer was setup to run on a company network. When I connected it at home as a stand-alone, I didn't know the password setup by the consultant. When I attempted my work login info, I got the message "there are currently no logon servers available to service the logon request".
When I switched users to "other users", a random username and password would not log me in. When I attempted to login from another domain, I was prompted to either "log on to another domain by typing domain name\domain name user" or "log onto your computer (not a domain) by typing MC8377\local user name." Since this computer is not connected to internet, I was trying the second option. Still no luck.
Upon turning computer ON, I have used Esc key to get into startup menu as well as F8 to attempt system recovery. No luck on either. Start up menu has "return to factory settings" grayed out as if turned off during setup to prevent future reset. And on F8 recovery option, I don't know the Administrator password so I never get passed that point. I have also tried removing the green jumper on the motherboard and putting it back in, but this didn't work either.
At this point, I wanted to know if there's a "nuclear" option to return a computer to "out-of-box" mode, whereby I can have computer revert to day 1, with login information to be setup by me.
Appreciate any help you can provide.
Thanks