All accounts disabled

[wolluf]

My daughter was in a chat room when her PC rebooted itself - and now ALL the accounts are disabled (so you can't log on at all - only access is via recovery console & that doesn't appear to have tools to cope with this - unless there are services which can be disabled to allowme to login).

Any ideas how to remedy this situation (other than reinstall).

Thanks

 

[linney]

You can try Recovery Console before you re-install. You could also try repairing Windows by running it over itself.

An easy to follow recovery console description when unable to start computer.

http://www.mediaworkstation.com/htm/homeset1.htm

Click on Tutorial then the Charlie White article on XP crash.
This is a laymans version of Q307545 in simple language.



How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

Try these out, see if they help.


Error Message: Windows Cannot Load Your Profile Because It May Be Corrupted (Q318011)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q318/0/11.asp

http://groups.google.com/groups?sourceid=navclient&q=corrupt+user+profile+windows+xp

 

[aces0]

>My daughter was in a chat room when her PC rebooted itself - and now ALL the accounts are disabled <

WHAT the? is she telling the truth for real, put her on the spot ask here if she didnt screw around with the accounts on the computer.Rebooting it self is very strange. power supply cpu getting to hot etc is why a computer will reboot.

 

[wolluf]

Linney,

I can run recovery console - but there's no function within it to enable accounts or create new ones (ie, to change situation so I can log in). I was hoping somebody would know how to either enable an account or create new one from recovery console (or a hack). Otherwise I'll just try repair/reinstall over itself option (which takes as long as install - but I could have done that by now anyway!) to see if that works.

Thanks anyway.

PS - has anyone seen this before - I was wondering if its something deliberately malicious, or just an unfortunate side effect of some other problem (Aces0 - my daughter is far more interested in chat rooms than screwing around with user accounts - and she had 2 friends round sitting in with her - all very unhappy at no chat room access).

 

[ANAKIN]

chat rooms are sources for 'bots' which could have changed the accounts, especially if she was allowed on as an administrator. when you get this fixed, I recommend wipe and rebuild, password the admin account and set the daughter in User group only. also instruct her on the evils of chat rooms and anyone met there, let alone the 'bots'. sorry to preach but heard too many stories. see grc.com about irc chat rooms and use of 'bots'.

 

[guggle]

Sounds to me like a hacker has got in a back door while your daughter was chatting. The hacker probably disabled all accounts and then rebooted the machine. My advice would be to fdisk and rebuild from scratch and install some good anti-virus and personal firewall software.

 

[wolluf]

Still trying with this (will probably end up reinstalling, but...). The repair option left system in same state, so now trying it again after removing SAM file (there's a second hard drive in PC with a working win2000 on it, so I can access the filestore & backup etc). One other piece of info - my daughter was actually playing a word game on the Shockwave site rather than in a chat room (I misunderstood, she had been in chat room before playing the game - she does spend a lot of time in chat rooms - she is aware of the dangers). Also, Anakin this is her own PC (on our home LAN) - we don't place restrictions on her use of it.

 

[jeremybarker]

Came across this link, its written for 2000, but don't see why it wouldn't work. Not tested but might be worth to try in the recovery console.

http://windows.about.com/library/tips/bltip238.htm

 

[wolluf]

Thanks Jeremy - but net user isn't available from recovery console (I've already tried it!)

 

[wolluf]

For anyone interested, removing the SAM file and running XP repair (the reinstall) has worked - it prompted me to set up new users which weren't disabled! Put my daughter's old profile back in place, and it seems to be working as was.

 

[jeremybarker]

Glad to hear you're up and running. Now to figure out what caused it, or are you interested. I was wondering if you have a policy setup to lock someone out of an account after so many tries. Read that you don't put restrictions on her use, just curious.

 

[wolluf]

Jeremy - no lockout after so many tries - we basically don't do restrictions here! (this is partly due to my experience as a contractor, working on sites where tech support were continually tying everything down - not for any good reason, just cos they'd found out how to! - making our jobs difficult/impossible - yes I got very good at getting round restrictions!). As to what caused problem - the PC is quite old, and has a Cyrix chip (which I know from experience NT based systems don't get on with as well as Intel/AMD) - so may have been an odd glitch - or of course something malicious from the net.