hdd password recovery

[Samdbugman]

howdy. if this isnt the right forum please move it.
a friend has a 3 year old hp or compaq tower. they called me to help. they are not able to get into the admin accound, because the password was changed. it was changed by them when a popup told them for security they should change thier password.
after it was changed they could no longer get into the admin account with the password they changed it to, and the computer started sending out emails to everyone on her address list with porn and viagara type adds.
i ran anti virus and we found 20 trogans, virus, ect. everything comes back clean now, but we still cant get into asdmin account to format drive.she doesnt have a vista system disc, just the recovery partition.
1.. is there a way to get the password?

2... if not can i install a new hdd and install from her recovery partition?

3...will i be able to install new hdd and install vist from my disc or is the mb set up to not alow that?

thanks for any help, they are on a limited budget and are true friends to me and i would like to help them. thanks! sam

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I would say thats not worth saving. even if you did manage to get the password back, the system has been completely compromised by the virus/malware and turned into a 'zombie' node that does nothing but send out spam emails. theres no telling how secure it would be even if you managed to clear all the viruses/malware. I wouldnt trust it.

Best course of action would be to just wipe the drive and reinstall windows, then lecture your friend about not to go clicking random links and be semi cautious about sites that ask for login details.

I wouldnt waste my time trying to clean all the viruses

 

[Samdbugman]

thanks for reply. i figured as much, trouble is i cant wipe drive with out admin password. its a real mess. now they know about virus scans, not clicking popups, ect.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

you cant reinstall even if you use a bootable disc??

 

[specks]

Just format the drive. That will wipe out everything.

 

[kenkickr]

Boot from a Windows disc or UBCD and try to format(windows disc) or wipe the drive with the tools in UBCD.

 

[Samdbugman]

i didnt have a bootable disc handy, but when i tried that on a lap top with a pass word problem it wouldnt let me format without the pass word. i will take my vista disc over later this week and give it a try though. i will download the program mentioned earlier and try that too. thanks and more sugestions welcome, due to thier work schedule it will be later in the week before we can catch up with each other.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

i didnt have a bootable disc handy, but when i tried that on a lap top with a pass word problem it wouldnt let me format without the pass word. i will take my vista disc over later this week and give it a try though. i will download the program mentioned earlier and try that too. thanks and more sugestions welcome, due to thier work schedule it will be later in the week before we can catch up with each other.

I know some older machines can do that...Some computers are made specifically for certain organisations/companys, older IBMs, HPs and CompaQs used to do it its usually a security feature located in the bios that prevents the hard drive from being wiped without an administrative password.

If the computer doesnt allow you to install from boot then you take the drive out hook it up to a HDD dock that can be bought real cheap and format it like that before putting it back in.

make sure you completely destroy the partition then format it TWICE so the previous data gets completely wiped

Destroy partition>create new partition>format then do it again.

 

[jsfitz54]

Recovery Disks @ HP website: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00810334&lc=en&cc=ad&dlc=en#N322

Recovery from Hidden Partition, Vista: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00814731&cc=ad&dlc=en&lc=en

 

[qubit]

I would say thats not worth saving. even if you did manage to get the password back, the system has been completely compromised by the virus/malware and turned into a 'zombie' node that does nothing but send out spam emails. theres no telling how secure it would be even if you managed to clear all the viruses/malware. I wouldnt trust it.

Best course of action would be to just wipe the drive and reinstall windows, then lecture your friend about not to go clicking random links and be semi cautious about sites that ask for login details.

I wouldnt waste my time trying to clean all the viruses

I'll second Freedom on this one. Once a PC has been infected, you can never be sure that it's clean again, so a wipe and reinstall is required.

Was all their data saved in My Documents which they now can't get to and have no backup? If so, they have a bit of a problem and it's going to take more effort.

 

[Samdbugman]

there is some data in documents, but they said it was only documents and they have hard copies of them, but they would like to save them if possible. i think they just want a functional machine at this point, so i will probably try to format with my vista disc, but keep the suggestions comming.
its nice to have a problem to help someone with to keep my mind occupied after all the emotional overload ive been going through. thanks again, love this site and these people

 

[qubit]

its nice to have a problem to help someone with to keep my mind occupied after all the emotional overload ive been going through. thanks again, love this site and these people

Hey, you're welcome, we're glad to help. It's a good crowd here, that's for sure.

TPU has a sister site at www.generalnonsense.net if you feel like venting about stuff.