there's usually Linux based bootdisks you can get to edit the registry as well as change the admin password.

Here's a link that might be of some help

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Did you read this? That's what I used. :)

Kibbee doesn't really read he just looks at the words and starts typing about what he thinks is on the page. ;)

I stopped fixing computers of non-techy people. Their shit is just too messed up and I end up getting screwed over by Futureshop at some point or another during the malfunction.

http://members.rogers.com/sometimesboredinottawa/2002_09_01_archive.html#82222175

Two lessions I learned:

1. Look before you leap
2. No matter how much you know about how operating systems work, sometimes you can't predict how they will act.

Why do I feel like I suddenly want to download Firefox... ;)

Maybe you should just put out those annoying popup ads telling you to download things... like the shot the ducks one...

T.

I think maybe he wrote that before he updated that. I swear that wasn't there before.

I guess that would work ... Firefox blocks popups and IE doesn't (pre SP2).

I like the crazy monkey ones myself .... I miss them. :P

Kibbee: it was part of my original post. :)

I just hosed my Windows Server 2003 and the Administrator password in the Recovery console does not work!!!!

I just about that tool of yours. What timing.

P.S. I'm on my Linux RH 7.3 2.6.6 kernel

If anyone is interested, here's how to blank out the admin password on Win 2K Advanced Server/Win2k Professional/WinXP(in theory only--not ever tested):

****Note: the boot disk described above doesn't work in this instance. You have to use the information described here in order to reset the admin password.

Step 1: Download and burn the SystemRescueCD. You can get it at www.sysresccd.org.

Step 2: Boot from that cd. When you get to the boot prompt, either hit or wait a few seconds for it to do it for you.

Step 3: When prompted for the keyboard, I just his for the default. YMMV.

Step 4: Make sure your internet access is via DHCP so you get an automatic IP. If that is the case, you have internet access! If not, you'll have to consult the documentation on how to configure it manually. The instructions on how to load the manual are given when finished booting.

Step 5: If your drive is partitioned as FAT32, skip to Step 8:

Step 6: enter the following command:

mkdir /mnt/win

Step 7: type in the following commands:

captive-install-acquire

(this will take some time, but it's absolutely essential as it will give you read/write access to your NTFS partitition)

****Note: if you are unfamiliar with the Unix method of mounting partitions, enter

run_qtparted

so you can determine which partition holds the NTFS partition you need to access. Qtparted is a clone of Partiton Magic. Next enter:

mount.captive-ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

****Note: If your NTFS partition isn't located at /dev/hda1, substitute /dev/hd** where ** is what you found via qtparted--ex:/dev/hda2 /dev/hdb1, etc.

Skip to Step 9

Step 8: Enter:

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

If your FAT32 windows partition isn't at /dev/hda1, see the instructions in Step 7.

Step 9: Enter the following commands:

cd /mnt/win/winnt/system32/config
rename sam sam.bak
rm -f sam
cd ../../repair
(you should be in /mnt/win/winnt/repair)
rename sam sam.bak
rm -f sam
cd ~
umount /mnt/win
sync
reboot

****Note: If using Win XP, substitute "windows" for "winnt" in the above.

Before the system reboots, you will need to remove the rescue CD so you can boot into Windows.

The the administrator password is now blank.

If your box happened to be an Active Directory domain controller, google for instructions on how to reset the AD administrator password. It works. I've done it :)

For those of you who aren't familiar with Linux commands, all I did was backup the file "SAM" as "sam.bak" and then deleted it in the following directories:

c:\WINNT\system32\config
c:\WINNT\repair

I'm not 100% sure this works on XP because I've not tried it. I'm assuming that there's a backup SAM file in c:\Windows\repair on XP. You have to delete the backup SAM file or else it will be used to create the one in c:\WINNT\system32\config that you deleted.

If the filesystem is FAT32, any MS-DOS based or equivalent (Win 98 boot disk) boot disk/CD will suffice. As long as you delete the 2 SAM files, you'll be good to go.

If anyone tries this method for Win XP and it works, let me know.

Have fun!

James Blevins

Thank you Ryan you have saved my sanity. Don't worry you aren't the only one to disable stuff you shouldn't have.

Urge...to kill...lowering.

I can't believe I did the same thing last night too (Disabled VGASave). Fortunately I can remember the password. Mental Note: Must stop using computer whilst half cut...

Here's the URL for getting into a Win 2K Advanced Server with Active Directory installed. Once you blank the password using the instructions I posted above, do what you find at:

http://www.petri.co.il/reset_domain_admin_password_in_windows_2000_ad.htm

*Disclaimer--using any of the information about getting into a Windows box that I posted so you can 0wn someone else's computer without their permission is not only something I condemn, but it will give you the opportunity to know (biblically speaking) some interesting fellas in the federal pen. Don't do it!

By the way, Ryan, thanks for the info on how to reenable VGASave. It worked like a charm! You really saved my butt. I disabled the service, thinking Windows would automatically pick up the correct drivers instead of VGASave if it wasn't enabled. WRONG ANSWER! Thank you for playing. We have a lovely parting gift of a perpetual BSOD--complete with memory dump! Sucker!

I'm just glad I'm not the only one who has done this. Lesson learned!

Thanks Ryan, you were way more tenacious to find a fix than I would have been.

Can't belive Microsoft does not at least post a simple warning that you are about to do something REALLY stupid (not that that would have stopped any of us!). Anyway should have googled your help BEFORE starting the Repair process :( and getting the same black screen!

Mike: I agree. A person should NOT be able to disable VgaSave from a dialog box.

Great stamina! Your story seems to have a happy end ... but why did the original problems 'disappear' ;) ? You had VgaSave initially enabled and had problems; then disabled VgaSave and the rest of the story is about how to enabled them again ...

I also have black screens every now and then and sometimes monitor in standby or even PC crash. Finally discovered that VgaSave had resource conflicts with CPU to AGP controller (bloody 'show hidden devices' option!). I have video drivers installed though (Nvidia 56.72), but it seems VgaSave sometimes takes over.

Any ideas anyone?

I too played the disable Vgasave game recently and after many, many, many bad words I snapped and reinstalled XP. Long way round but at least it worked. My video display is STILL in vgasave. For now, that's the way it's going to stay.

hi! i just stumbled upon this post while searching for solutions because i just did this same thing! i am confused as to how i can restart into a mode to enable vga again? i have an xp disk but i can't see the screen so how can i set the bios to boot from cd? ANY help would be appreciated as i am doing this for a friend as well and just massively messed up apparently!

thanks
kristen

- I went one silly step further to try and remove it to try and get XP to recognise a video card, and deleted all the registry stuff relating to it - not realising that it was my entire set of PCI registry entries that was corrupted by SP2 preventing XP from installing new drivers.
Cleaned up the PCI stuff, after a recovery re-install, and XP happily rebuilt the PCI device database, but makes no attempt to rebuild the vgasave entries.

I commited the same disabling blunder but I did not look to see what the name of the driver was. I have been Googling around trying to find the name of the service so that I can re-enable it. I happened upon your blog and tried the vgasave but it was already on service_auto_start. changing it to service_system_start did not fix it. does anybody else have any other ideas. I am using XP pro sp2.

I'm experiencing the similar problem as Nate. Disabled vgasave, on WinXP SP2, and tried to enable it again in RC, using the command line originally posted. I'm promted that it's already set to SERVICE_SYSTEM_START, and still get the blank screen on start-up. I'd cut my losses and reinstall but I've got a few gigs of important data on there.

Any luck Nate or Rich? I am having the same problem with WinXP SP2.

I have a simikar issue with a new nv600GT card. Found that it is something to do with the analogue monitor (Hitachi CM801). When it is plugged in, the system will use vgasave 1 time in 4 when booting, instead of the nVidia driver. It does not have a problem if I use my LCD instead. If I use both at the same time, it fails 100% of the time. Driver and BIOS changes have not helped.

It appears to be a driver timing problem, as if I delete the driver and reinstall, it works fine until I reboot again. I also have XPSP2. Possibly if you could tell windows to wait for a few more seconds to initialize?

The search for an answer goes on . . .

Hi all!:

I´m fixing my neighbor´s computer because he was getting a BSOD from time to time. So I found out about the VGASAVE thing and disabled it like Ryan and some of you did.

I´ve tried twice to renable the VGASAVE and when Windows XP restarts instead of the black screen I´m getting the same BSOD my neighbour was having from time to time.

I´m writing this e-mail cause I´m hopeless and I´d like to know if any of you could fix this problem.

I´m suspicious about the source of the problem because I think all came up when my neighbor got two new RAM modules. I think that they have made some harm to the BIOS and so affected the AGP port.

I´m gonna try right now to change the video card. Maybe at least the vgasave service starts again and I can see the scree.

I´ll keep you informed

Albert

Albert: I've heard that BSODs are often caused by improper drivers. If that's true in your case replacing the video card should help as well, but you could also try updating the original card's drivers so that they don't BSOD the machine.

VGASAVE is meant to be used as a fallback mechanism for Windows when a valid driver could not be found (ie. so Windows will always come up). It's not meant to be used as a permanent video driver.

Same issue, different story. Once you get the vgasave re-enabled, and finish beating yourself bloody with a stick along the way, how the hell does one manage to install good drivers? I've got a Radeon 9600, the ATI drivers wont recognize vgasave as a Standard VGA driver, and refuses to install.

It's been days of BSOD before I found this post, but I would really love to get back to utilizing my hardware for all it is worth. Anything...?

Yep, I had this problem too. The drivers would not install over VGASAVE, which is why I tried to disable it in the first place. :) I can't believe I didn't blog my solution to that and my memory is a bit cloudy. I think what I did was switched from VGASAVE to one of the "Standard Windows 800x600" (or something like that) drivers and after that I could install my driver over it.

Good luck!

Love your work guys, but you realise you've done this the hard way...

Just choose "Last Known Good" on the advanced startup menu (f8 menu) to boot using the last known good configuration - in this case, the configuration used to boot the computer BEFORE you disabled one of the drivers.

I tried that Joe and it didn't work for me.

Fair enough... I guess that means vgasave is not considered an essential service so the computer is successfully getting to logon (even though we can't see it ;) and so it updates the last known good information with the damaged info.

A useful 'best practice' to follow when messing with drivers is to create a backup hardware profile befreo you make changes, that way you can always get into your original configuration if your changes mes the machine.

Of course we all get lazy with this sort of thing because we all know it's more fun to fix it than to avoid breaking it ;)