When computer boots up and the login screen appears you forgot your password what can you do to bypass it?

Answer 1

Call best buy- was the first answer.

At the end of the day you may have to do as above and buy a replacement machine - but that is the worst case.

I assume that it is the Windows LOGON prompt you are talking about not the hardware/BIOS boot-password which is a different problem.

You can't just 'bypass' it, even Windows is more secure than that. Here are some possible ways out of your problem.

1. There is some software you can get on the internet (using another computer) which you can download to floppy or CD then use to boot your computer from the floppy disk or CD. This software will then allow you to set a new password for your Windows user. Windows security is fairly weak.

2. Remove the hard disk from your computer and attach it to another computer as an external disk. (A USB attached box for doing this is quite cheap). You can then access your disk and copy away all your data as a backup before doing the recovery described below. I believe software is available on the Internet which will let you reset the Windows password on the USB attached disk but I have never done this so can't give details.

3. Completely re-install Windows from your original media, or use the 'recovery' method supplied by your computer manufacturer. You will almost certainly loose all your installed software and data so you better have backups of everything. Expect to spend several days re-installing all your software and recovering data from backup.

4. Replace the hard-disk in your computer with a new one, you can take the opportunity to upgrade to a larger one at the same time. Fully re-install Windows and all your software. Attach the old disk via USB as discussed in 2 and recover all your data direct to your new disk. No special software is required to do this copying, Windows provides everything you need.

5. If all this seems too much hard work or is simply beyond your skill level, then either take your computer to a specialist and pay to have it done for you or do as suggested in the first answer and buy a new machine.

6. Once you get Windows up and running again a poorly documented feature exists in Windows (recent versions) which lets you create a 'password recovery' file on a device such as a USB memory stick. Use it then keep that device in a safe place - don't leave it around or someone else may use it to recover your password. (Go to the Microsoft website for more info. I don't have the knowledge base number handy to give you.)