password expired, but can't change it.

[vetigoodson]

As soon as i woke up this morning my wife hands me her laptop and asks me to fix it. it is running Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. When you turn it on it says "your password has expired and must be changed." First off, she has never had a password on her laptop. if you press cancel it just goes back to the same screen. So i pressed ok. it gives me the, old password/new password/confirm password, text boxes. As i mentioned she never had a password and doesn't want one, so i just left all the feilds blank, which is what i did when not wanting a password, and pressed the arrow button. it says that it's changing the password, then it says, 'Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied.' To me it sounds like it is trying to boot off the network, but why it would sudenlly decide to do this after six months i have no idea. i thought well i'll try the homegoup password, but that returned the same message. of course, the next thing i thought about doing was doing a restore. however, even though she has a DVD drive. it doesn't pick up the windows 7 disk even though i changed it to boot the optic drive first. i found a program that is suppose to change the password, but i can't get to it, because when i try to go to comand prompt, guess what it says i need a new password.

 

[Sub Styler]

Not being able to boot the installation media from the BIOS sounds unusual, unless the disk/drive is faulty.

You should be able to press F8 at startup, boot to safe mode and log in via the built in administrator account (this should not have the password problem)

The next thing to do is create a new user account and see if you can log in with that.

 

[vetigoodson]

i put windows 7 on my flash drive went into bios and had it boot from that drive first. Wouldn't do it.

 

[vetigoodson]

Sub Styler, when i log into safe mode it still tells me that i need a new password. When i press the arrow button the message is a little different this time it says, 'An attempt was made to logon, but the network logon service was not started." Thanks for the attempt. Any other suggestions?

 

[vetigoodson]

i went to last known good configuration. it comes up and says my password has expired and must be changed

 

[vetigoodson]

i tried the windows debugging mode. Same thing.

 

[vetigoodson]

i tried the Directory Services Restor mode. Same out come.

 

[Sub Styler]

So has the built in administrator been disabled or is it also acting like it's on a domain?

Can you boot that USB drive with 7 on it on your machine? If the drive is not bootable then it wont work.

Try following this guide when you make it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

 

[vetigoodson]

Wheter it is on safe mode or starting windows regularly it gives the same result. it sasys i need to change the password. The only diffence is that in safe mode it says, "attempt was made to logon, but the network logon service was not started." Were as, in a regular windows start up after it says i need to change the password it says, 'Configuration information could not be read from the domain controller either because the machine is unavailable, or access has been denied.' There is no 'Admistrator account." i have tried to boot from cd and from the flash drive, after changing the load order in the bios.

 

[Sub Styler]

I don't know why you cant boot from CD, is there an "on the fly" boot device selection e.g. F12, are there any messages like no boot media found etc.

 

[vetigoodson]

Yea, I changed the bios boot order, and when that didn't work I tried to do the "On the Fly" thing. It still didn't work. No error messages or anything it just went straight to your password has expired. did this on both the cd and theflash drive.

 

[Sub Styler]

Does she have this computer from work/university? If so it needs to be seen by their IT dept.

Edit: when you say she never had a password, how long for?

 

[Britton30]

Yes it appears this computer has been/is part of a domain which requires a password and it has been disabled. Is this possibly stolen? Did you buy it from a reputable source?

 

[vetigoodson]

Does she have this computer from work/university? If so it needs to be seen by their IT dept.

Edit: when you say she never had a password, how long for?

No this is her computer. When I say she has never had a password I mean, "She has never had a password." From the day she turned it on.

 

[vetigoodson]

Yes it appears this computer has been/is part of a domain which requires a password and it has been disabled. Is this possibly stolen? Did you buy it from a reputable source?

It is connected to my home network, which I tried using with no luck. I did get it off E-bay. The previous owner, put a fresh instal of windows 7 on it before they shipped it. However, we have had this computer for over six months. Why would it suddenly decide that it wasn't conected to its previous owner.

 

[Sub Styler]

Well whether the cause for the switch from "Local log on" to "Domain log on" was a windows error, user error or malware is unclear. Whichever the case, without booting to a device with a repair utility on or re-installation media you are not really going to be able to do anything about it.

Is the machine using the welcome screen or asking you to press Ctrl+alt+del to log on?

 

[vetigoodson]

Well whether the cause for the switch from "Local log on" to "Domain log on" was a windows error, user error or malware is unclear. Whichever the case, without booting to a device with a repair utility on or re-installation media you are not really going to be able to do anything about it.

Is the machine using the welcome screen or asking you to press Ctrl+alt+del to log on?

Neither, it is opening with your password has expired.

 

[whs]

This system obviously was part of a domain. I do not think you are going to get very far without the domain. If I were you, I would cut my losses, save my data with a live Linux CD and reinstall the OS - e.g. from the recovery partition if present.

 

[Britton30]

Did the seller give you a Windows 7 DVD disk?

 

[essenbe]

Britton, the last time we worked on a machine that wouldn't boot from DVD or USB, it was a dead motherboard. It has to have a bios issue.