Uh-oh, an NT problem!

[matti]

Hi to all!!

I just registered, you seem to have a great forum here!

Could anyone help me, please, I'm stuck with a problem wich is way above my (pathetic) skills.

We got an old laptop from a relative of ours and we can't log in.

First, it says "eventlog is full" in a alert-box

Second, the machine hasn't been used for a year now and no one remembers any password. The previously used account name shows in the log-in dialog box, thou.

(I realize these password-bypassing questions must sound odd to you, but I'm not any hacker!!!!)

Any chance we could log in somehow? All the (understandable!)instructions I found from the web, required a working NT-account - wich we, understandably, don't have.

The machine is a 166Mhz with NT 4.0. It was used at home previously, not as a part of any local network, so I quess there is no administrator password, but I'm not sure...

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Inaris]

This is what you need. Although it is a bit expensive to get an old machine like that up and running. Why might I ask is it so important to use this machine? Does it have files you need to get at?

http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/erdcommander2002.asp?pid=erd

 

[Lone Wolf]

Generally I don't like to give advice on these types of questions, cuz ya never know if the poster is a miscreant looking to tamper with someone else's laptop or truly the owner of the equipment.

But in all honesty, this is information that one can acquire from the internet and if I ignored this posting, it would only be a matter of time before you found the solution anyway.

The only way to crack a NT-based Admin password login is to use a 3rd party software to reset it. (And they are pretty expensive - mind you). Otherwise, you will have to use a Unix like utility (freeware) on the internet to reset that password.

We've got a lot of teenagers (some good and some bad) so I hesitate to post where you can D/L such a tool. But I can point you in the right direction by saying "GOOGLE".

 

[matti]

Ok, thank you for helping me!

yes, I realize my question sounds bad, I could be a teen age hacker looking for new tools, or something. But I'm not. Anyway, I have that password problem solved now, with some very weird program I found from the web. So I realize I took a huge risk using it, but it seems to have been worth it.

The second problem is then under solving, there's a mysterious "SERVICES.EXE" running all the time, and it consumes 99% of the CPU-capacity. That makes the machine - heh, somewhat slow... It cannot be ended from the task manager.

I downloaded a new service pack from Microsoft - any other suggestions?


Matti J.
MA, Senior High School Teacher
Finland

 

[Inaris]

matti,

First, NT is a very touchy OS to work with. Services.exe is a subsystem that controls a lot of other things with in windows.
I would recomened downloading and running Process Explorer to see what is going on. That should tell you what specifically is causing the system to hang.
here is the link.
http://www.sysinternals.com/files/procexpnt.zip

Good luck

 

[matti]

I'll check it out. Thank you very much!