:( Problem

[StevenOtero]

Ok guys n gals.
Here is my problem.... My Mom just got a new job and she got a new IBM Thinkpad. The IT dept. @ her work says that she has to logon @ their network first before she can even get to the desktop...

I've never heard of that. But oh well .. we've been using the user and password they gave her... maybe the info they gave us isn't right. Is there any way to get to the desktop?? I mean geez this is stupid... my mom is pretty mad about that. Maybe I can get in w/ the administrator password.. I don't have it......... Is there anyway to recover that w/out them knowing that I did??

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Reality]

Well, first, if it's her work computer, I wouldn't mess with it trying to hack around the login process. Most IT people can detect this and if her computer becomes unusable and she has to get them to repair it, they will know what happened most likely.

They probably use a domain (assuming Windows here) server to handle all user accounts which is why she has to login. If she's bringing the computer home and they know this, you should tell her to ask the IT department how she should login at home. They very well may be willing to install a local account for her.

I assume you are saying that she can login at work fine, but when she's at home she cannot login which would be makes sense with a central domain server. I suggest getting her to ask the IT department how she can login at home to do work at home or on the road when unable to login to the network.

 

[Reality]

Of course if you are brave, you could repartition the drive (assuming she has a lot of free space left on the local hard drive) with a tool like Partition Magic and then install another copy of windows or linux on the second partition. Dual-booting in other words supporting two independent operating systems. I would definitely NOT recommend this unless you know exactly what you're doing and I would also highly recommend that you try my suggestion in the previous post.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Of course if you are brave, you could repartition the drive (assuming she has a lot of free space left on the local hard drive) with a tool like Partition Magic and then install another copy of windows or linux on the second partition. Dual-booting in other words supporting two independent operating systems. I would definitely NOT recommend this unless you know exactly what you're doing and I would also highly recommend that you try my suggestion in the previous post.

OR if she does not use the one at home for a work computer.

You could just find out what kind of HD she has and reformat the whole hard drive with a disk utility program saved on a floppy

I did that to my cousins Halliburton computer when I could not get into the thing....had to do it in dos and reformat.

 

[Yeagermeister]

OR if she does not use the one at home for a work computer.

You could just find out what kind of HD she has and reformat the whole hard drive with a disk utility program saved on a floppy

I did that to my cousins Halliburton computer when I could not get into the thing....had to do it in dos and reformat.

I found a nice program called Killdisk that blows away the partition without having to use a dos disk. I use it all the time on hd's that have spyware and viruses.

btw Stinkpads are a pain in the arse to reload and find all the drivers.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I found a nice program called Killdisk that blows away the partition without having to use a dos disk. I use it all the time on hd's that have spyware and viruses.

btw Stinkpads are a pain in the arse to reload and find all the drivers.

I still use the dos disk (the HD utility I find for the specific brand of harddrive)....it works good so no use to change things for me.

You are however probably right about finding the drivers and such for the computer.

I will tell the worse in that area IMO was Emachines a few years back.
You would think it would be easy to find sound drivers and such for a motherboard but NOOOOOOO I had to search everywhere lol.

The machine came with a drivers/system disk but that disk did not even have the onboard audio drivers.

Talk about a sad company and computer, at least at that time not sure if it is still bad now or not.

 

[Yeagermeister]

I still use the dos disk (the HD utility I find for the specific brand of harddrive)....it works good so no use to change things for me.

You are however probably right about finding the drivers and such for the computer.

I will tell the worse in that area IMO was Emachines a few years back.
You would think it would be easy to find sound drivers and such for a motherboard but NOOOOOOO I had to search everywhere lol.

The machine came with a drivers/system disk but that disk did not even have the onboard audio drivers.

Talk about a sad company and computer, at least at that time not sure if it is still bad now or not.

My wife used to have one and I hated working on it.

 

[Kangaroo]

Ok guys n gals.
Here is my problem.... My Mom just got a new job and she got a new IBM Thinkpad. The IT dept. @ her work says that she has to logon @ their network first before she can even get to the desktop...

I've never heard of that. But oh well .. we've been using the user and password they gave her... maybe the info they gave us isn't right. Is there any way to get to the desktop?? I mean geez this is stupid... my mom is pretty mad about that. Maybe I can get in w/ the administrator password.. I don't have it......... Is there anyway to recover that w/out them knowing that I did??

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Windows XP pro. NT or 2000 all require a profile which is created the 1st time you ever login into the PC. The company has in place where you have to authenticate on the server the 1st time so you can verify the security credentials. They also have security policies which push down admin right settings etc. These polices usually change the admin password back to a default setting if they have changed. Them knowing depends on what security credentials changes they are tracking that varies from IT departments.

There are some Linux boot disk that will allow you to change the local administrator password and things like that. But most companys disable the default administrator ID and rename it to another name so be aware of that if you try the linux admin password hacks.

If you do any of the other tricks above you will blow up the company load and the laptop will not work on the network and you would most likely be breaking rules set by the company. Remember the the company owns that laptop not your mom so be careful on what you start hacking it.

Yes we lock the idiot users out so they do not break things and load all those games on there they are missing c:

 

[StevenOtero]

Thanks for your help guys , the stupid IT ppl gave her the wrong password. LMAO after all that.