Hesitant about doing......... 1

[mel999]

Sort of hesitant.

My wife bought a Toshiba laptop (Satellite 1800 – 712) from E-bay.
Also got the recovery discs and utilities.

She or rather I, really need to wipe clean and bring back to factory settings. However, I am hesitant about doing this because “WHAT IF” the previous owner had pass worded it from the word go.

She does not have to enter a password at the moment, but how will I know if I reformat using the recovery discs that there was a password on to begin with?

Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[micker377]

What OS is it running now, and what did you want to run? As for password, look in BIOS setup for the "password setup" page. It will say "change password" (if there is one), and ask for one if not. You may have two different places for passwords, so check all pages. You can also go back to the E-Bay page and "contact seller". You can just ask him.

 

[bcastner]

You would know by now if a BIOS password was activated.

 

[mobajwa]

Dont worry and go ahead with the process. You will be fine

-
mobajwa

 

[linney]

Reformatting and re-installing is one way used to fix systems where passwords have been forgotten or lost. It will give you the opportunity to set your own passwords for the Administrator during the install if I remember correctly (Retail does anyway), and the opportunity to create other Administrator Users after Setup when you are first loading Windows.

This article applies to a Retail format and install but it is close enough to give you a rough idea and sort of guide of what will happen during your Recovery CD install. **** You may even find the exact help you need at the OEM site (if you search for Recovery). ****

HOW TO: Partition and Format a Hard Disk in Windows XP (Q313348)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q313/3/48.asp

Read the paragraph,
"How to Partition and Format Your Hard Disk by Using Windows XP Setup."


For more help (shows enlargeable screenshots) go here.

http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/InstallXPPro/installxppro1.htm

 

[mel999]

Hi all, - - I will try and explain in depth what happened. After buying the laptop she took it with her knowing she had a 5 hour train journey. When using it for the first time, the battery must have been low because she got some message (she cannot remember now what it said) but did say something about a password. She then just switched the puter off and read a book!!!

Once at her destination, she put the laptop on charge for 36 hours and then using the mains power, booted it up and all was fine. It came immediately onto the XP home desktop with the usual icons. No probs at all and was able to work doing her word docs and spreadsheets. Now she never uses it unless she has mains available just incase the same thing happens.

I hope I have detailed this correctly.

Regards, Mel

 

[timroop]

Sounds like the pc went into System Standby mode. When XP is revived it will show the "This workstation is locked" message and prompt for a password. If your Wife had entered no password and simple pressed OK then she would have been fine.

You can set the power options from the Control Panel.


Tim Roop
"If you can do something about it, why waste time getting upset? If you can't do anything about it, why bother getting upset on top of it? -Shantideva

 

[mel999]

Aha timroop - - Sounds good to me. - - Thank you for this info.

Mel