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Personal Tech

Solutions: Time to turn to a 'forgotten password' program

By JOHN TORRO
Published September 25, 2006

I forgot my password on my infrequently used Dell laptop Windows 2000. When I went to a retailer for assistance, the representative said the best I could do is to pay them $100 and they would download the hard drive. After that, I would have to scrap the computer. I do not want to scrap the computer. And they would see all my personal info.

Scrap the computer? That's ridiculous. At worst, reinstalling the operating system would solve this problem. It would create a new registry, which, of course, would mean you would have to reinstall all programs. Your personal data would be left intact as long as you didn't choose the reformat option when reinstalling. Another option is one of the several free "forgotten password" programs. Most of them are floppy-based boot discs with utilities to overlay the encrypted password section of the existing registry on the hard drive. You can check some of these out at www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm. The Petter Nordahl-Hagen's Offline NT Password & Registry Editor listed there looks like it may be your best option.

Utility program can convert QuickTime files for you

I use a Kodak EasyShare digital camera for stills and short video. When I upload to my computer, the video is stored as QuickTime. Neither Windows MovieMaker nor InterVideo recognizes the video when I try to put together a movie. The movie portion plays back fine on my screen, but places only one frame in the movie.

You'll need some sort of converter to get the QuickTime .MOV file transferred to an MPEG or AVI file. Many video utility programs, from retail products to freeware, are available. Check out www.videohelp.com/tools. Rad Video Tools is an example of a freeware program that seems to do the basic job.

Download a new copy of file that won't start

When I turn on the computer (Windows Me), I get this message: "Error starting program. A required DLL file WINSPOOL DRV was not found." Is there any way I can get this file back?

Download a copy of this file from www.afreedrv.com and place it in your \Windows\System folder.

Backup software can keep copies of important data

I back up my personal data every week to CD-R and to a 1-gigabyte flash drive. My personal data requires less than 256 megabytes. Total space used on my hard drive is a little more than 5 gigabytes out of 40 GB available, and I don't expect that to grow much. I have been thinking of buying an external 20 GB USB drive so I can copy all data from my C drive to the external drive. I would be able to take three backups onto the external USB drive. Then, when I need to restore my C drive, I can use my Windows Me install CD to format the new C drive and restore the most recent backup from the external drive backup data to the new C drive. Then, all of my programs and required maintenance are up to the point where I last backed up the system. Do you see any problems with this approach?

That is a good solution. You didn't mention what backup software you were using. Rather than relying on straight file copying to back up important system and program data, you should use an application that creates system backups from which you can restore your system from one source.

MS Backup comes with Windows Me in the Add-ons/MSBackup folder on your Windows Me source CD. Double-click on msbexp.exe, which will install the MS Backup program on your hard disc. It may not make an entry in your Programs menu, so you may need to find the program by clicking Start, Search, For Files and Folders, enter msbackup.exe in the "Search for files and folders named:" box.

Send questions to personaltech@sptimes.com or Personal Tech, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. Selected questions will be answered only in the column. John Torro is a Microsoft-certified systems engineer and a Microsoft-certified solution developer.

[Last modified September 25, 2006, 06:17:04]