Hello,

As more and more new PCs have no floppy drives, a few questions arise:

1. What would be an alternative to the diskette for the password reset
disk?

2. If I need to have an external USB floppy drive, can I use a USB flash
drive instead? And, how to setup the USB flash drive so that Windows XP
would recognize it as a password reset disk?

Thank you.

Bussarin V.

Bussarin wrote:
> As more and more new PCs have no floppy drives, a few questions arise:
>
> 1. What would be an alternative to the diskette for the password
> reset disk?
>
> 2. If I need to have an external USB floppy drive, can I use a USB
> flash drive instead? And, how to setup the USB flash drive so that
> Windows XP would recognize it as a password reset disk?

Look into BartPE and - in particular - the UBCD4WIN version of it - which
has a way to reset passwords.
Remember - resetting a password in this way messes up EFS - bad.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Thanks Shenan. I'm aware of such a bad effect of resetting password to EFS
files. That is why I am looking for another way to create the password
reset disk without a floppy drive.

Bussarin V.

"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:uz6SfIH7FHA.1944@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> Bussarin wrote:
>> As more and more new PCs have no floppy drives, a few questions arise:
>>
>> 1. What would be an alternative to the diskette for the password
>> reset disk?
>>
>> 2. If I need to have an external USB floppy drive, can I use a USB
>> flash drive instead? And, how to setup the USB flash drive so that
>> Windows XP would recognize it as a password reset disk?
>
> Look into BartPE and - in particular - the UBCD4WIN version of it - which
> has a way to reset passwords.
> Remember - resetting a password in this way messes up EFS - bad.
>
> http://www.ubcd4win.com/
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP
> --
> How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
>

Bussarin wrote:
> As more and more new PCs have no floppy drives, a few questions
> arise:
> 1. What would be an alternative to the diskette for the password
> reset disk?
>
> 2. If I need to have an external USB floppy drive, can I use a USB
> flash drive instead? And, how to setup the USB flash drive so
> that Windows XP would recognize it as a password reset disk?

Shenan Stanley wrote
> Look into BartPE and - in particular - the UBCD4WIN version of it
> - which has a way to reset passwords.
> Remember - resetting a password in this way messes up EFS - bad.
>
> http://www.ubcd4win.com/

Bussarin wrote:
> Thanks Shenan. I'm aware of such a bad effect of resetting
> password to EFS files. That is why I am looking for another way to
> create the password reset disk without a floppy drive.

Unfortunately you are using a product (Windows XP) made just when the useful
life of the floppy disk was going to the ether. However - it wasn't close
enough and this is one of those legacy things that still require it. There
are way around just about everything else (installing your controller card
drivers without using the F6 method during a Windows XP install, etc) - but
I have yet to find a way to create a password reset disk in Windows XP
without using a floppy diskette drive (borrowed or otherwise.) Some claim
it works on Zip disks as well - untested by myself however.

I do believe the floppy essentially only contains one file when it is done
being "created" - and I cannot honestly say that if you took that file and
burned to to a CD that you would be able to use it at the logon screen..
But you would still need a floppy/zip drive for a bit, eh?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html