[RESOLVED] From another realm...

[JonNoH]

or eMachine Fun, part Deux...or part DUH...

eMachine with new PSU and now new MB...MB has VIA c-set, origonal had Intel. Machine will not boot into windows (safe or normal); after processing drivers in safe mode - it reboots.

Origonal installation is XP Home, and I do not have a disk for it. Put in XP Pro disk to boot into setup - no repair install possible (home vs. Pro), Recovery Console does not recognize Admin password to get into c:\windows. User doesn't know of a password for Admin Account...

Have not been able to load MB drivers yet because of boot problems.

Any ideas short of NUKE (either by recovery cds or manual)???

[street1]

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_admini...r_password.htm

[MobilePCPhysician]

As long as you know the original product key, borrow someones xp home cd and run a repair install. Simple and easy. Emachines do not respond to changing the admin passwords. That will not fix it.

Hopefully, the cd will find the install. Some oem versions do not respond to this kind of repair.

[TripleRLtd]

As long as you know the original product key, borrow someones xp home cd and run a repair install. Simple and easy. Emachines do not respond to changing the admin passwords. That will not fix it.

Exactly. And all Eeek machines have the sticker on the side.

btw: are you sure about the password issue? I hadn't noticed that before.

[JonNoH]

As long as you know the original product key, borrow someones xp home cd and run a repair install. Simple and easy. Emachines do not respond to changing the admin passwords. That will not fix it.

Hopefully, the cd will find the install. Some oem versions do not respond to this kind of repair.

This was my hunch for the repair...but I forgot to ask around last night for a home disk. Time to upgrade my memory - or find a better utility to manage what I have !

thanks for the thought Doc!

[JonNoH]

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_admini...r_password.htm

Thanks for the link Street1, I'm sure that will come in handy at some point.
I'm going to try a repair install first before I try to mess with RC, the password, and replacing the PCI.SYS file!

[JonNoH]

Once I found a disk...
the repair install worked like a charm!

Once I acurately read the product code, the activation process even worked

Thank for the help folks!