windows xp problem

wheely

The neighbor has a HP computer. When she boots up it does fine. She has two accounts set up, one for her and one for her sister. When it comes up to where you can choose which account to log into it does nothing. Neither account has a password. Need some help to solve the problem.

JDMurray

Have either of these user accounts ever worked? If so, what was done with the system prior to the logons failing? If not, have you tried booting from the Windows XP installation CD and running Repair? Also, can you successfully logon to the Administrator account, and create a new user account, and check if you can logon to it?

blargoe

This sounds like a problem I have seen before with a corrupted SAM file, I don't remember the details of how to fix it other than I booted the computer using UBCD for Windows and replaced it with a backup copy. If you google the problem you're having, it will probably turn up as a possible fix.

Is it XP home? You can do ctrl-alt-del twice at the welcome screen to get the classic windows login prompt and log in as administrator. If it is set to whatever it came with out of the factory, the password for administrator is probably blank. If you can log in as administrator, it may not be the SAM file.

What happens in safe mode?