Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

I bought a Toshiba Poretege in an auction for $120. It’s quite beautiful, under 2.5 lbs! When I tuen it on the log in screen comes up but nobody knows the password (because it was donated to the auction by someone who nobody can find!).

Is there anyway to resolve? I don’t mind reformatting the drive and reinstalling O/S etc …don’t really what is in the hard drive and don’t need to know.

I have Windows 2000 upgrade CD and I have a USB CDROM that I thought I can use to boot the Toshiba from and reinstal - except the darned login screen keeps coming up.

How can I get into this laptop? Any help appreciated

PS: All the laptop came with was a power adaptor! no CD, no boxes no manuals…

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

is it the windows logon screen or the bios logon screen ?

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

Windows 2000 logon screen

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

You can put it on the network, andthen use lophtcrack to hack in. or reinstall the OS.

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

or you can google the crack, the crack will make a startup disk and erase all of the passwords on the computer.

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

its better that u format the computer and reinstall 2000...

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

You would probably need the proper drivers to boot from a USB CDROM drive.
Reformat and install fresh OS. Go with XP

That didn’t even make any sense.

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

^ I think Mansoor might be suggesting using NT Password reset utility maybe?

The tool allows a person to create a startup boot disk/cd that resets passwords for valid user accounts and unlock/disable accounts as well. I’ve used it before…worked for me, but an upgrade reinstall to XP might as well be better.

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

^ Bandoostaa - for that NT pwd reset utility to work, I have to have booted up from a CD (or floppy but I don't have a floppy). Do you think I can create a bootable CD from another Windows 2000 machine (my dell desktop) or from my other (Dell) laptop machine which is on XP?

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

Creating a bootable (such a funny word) CD shouldn't be a problem.

But as Tofi said, having your lappy boot from the USB cd-rom still might not work because of missing drivers. I myself used floppy disks just because it was there.

Re: Windows 2000 on Toshiba Portege

Bandoostaa that is exactly what i meant thanks for explaining in detail. so just like he said atlantis make a bootable cd it will be the easiest way to go but if you dont want to then XP should work after the installation it will prompt you for new password and new sn. take either choice both are easy