ERD Commander: GJ!
This is the second time that ERD Commander 2005 has bailed me out. It’s a Windows XP recovery application that allows you to do lots of cool stuff! The application is stored in a CD which you use to boot up your system with. It will load its own files and drivers so you have less stuff to worry about.
1. Password Reset
Have you ever gotten into the Windows login page after boot up only to find yourself stumped because you forgot your password? Worry no more! ERDC has a nifty tool which allows you to change the passwords of Windows User Accounts.
Sure, there are other ways to crack reset an account’s password. You can go to the recovery console, overwrite this file with that. You can use another account to reset your password. You can use a password reset disk. You can bring it to a competent technician who will only tell you “Let’s Reformat the Computer” (Where you don’t actually reformat the computer ~ you reformat the hard drive).
However, this is the simplest non-destructive way that I’ve found - Using a third party tool.
2. System Restore Point
I installed a Windows automatic update a few days ago. It was only this morning that I had to reboot my computer (it hanged). During bootup, it stayed on the progress bar for 20 minutes! I checked out Safe Mode and found that it hanged after loading the MUP.SYS file. I tried recovery console and it hanged when performing chkdsk. After browsing around in the internet, I found a forum post speculating that this might be a SATA-drive related issue caused by a System Update. My computer hanged when I tried to access my SATA drive - my primary is an IDE drive and I have a SATA slave.
Lucky me, I didn’t turn off my System Restore points. My desktop is set up to create one every day. So, I used ERDC’s System Restore Functionality and went back in time for around 2 days. I restarted my computer and it worked!
There are a lot of other things that ERDC can do, but these two are my personal testimonials based from experiences on the product. Worth mentioning though is its ability to configure your desktop for internet via LAN (so you can read troubleshooting guides online) and drive mounting (access your other hard drives over the network to backup your files!).
GJ ERD Commander! Good Job!
Disclaimer: I am in no way employed, sponsored or affiliated with Winternals (ERD Commander Developer) or Microsoft (which bought Winternals July 2006).