One question, what are the odd of being able to back up his data files to cd
or dvd so he will have an archive before anything seriously goes awry? If
you have a cd drive installed the XP Backup Programme will allow you to do
either a full or incremental backup [discrete files].
Also there is a utility that will create a NTFS boot disk that allows you
to boot to a C:\prompt and examine the files on a one by one basis. Wish I
could remember the url for that to send to you. I have a floppy that I made
using that info and it has saved me a bit of frustration from time to time.
Beyond that I also have a floppy called a NUKE DISK that does just the
opposite!!
BTW I use PKZIP/UNZIP all the time with my NTFS System and have had no
problems.
As far as how much to charge the guy, how good a friend is he and how much
is his data worth. You could always have sent the drive(s) off to one of the
recovery companies and have him pay thru the teeth!! The odds of getting
proper operation copying the *SAM files may not work because of changing
address locations or registry ties.
There is a point at which I try to determine just how much more of a
"learning experience I really care to endure". Before it turns into a point
of low or no return. Maybe backing up the data, F_Disk_ing the whole
shebang, and reloading may be your final solution. just try to do a backup
before the probability of data loss, contamination does occur.
Running XP Pro now with the actual 2nd packet rather than still beta testing
it.
"JURB6006" wrote in message
...
I hate to be a pest;

I've read that if you get rid of the SAM files down in system32\config,
there
will be no passwords. Articles have refferred to a SAM.exe file, but all I
found was a SAM.log (or was it sav ?) and a SAM file with no extension at
all.
Viewing either gives you the usual hashed up slashed up crap, nothing for
the
human eye. Actually I can't even tell if the file is corrupt. Booting from
the
new drive with this one as D: I renamed the SAM files and now when I go to
recovery console I don't get a prompt for a password, but after it asks
"which"
windows install do I wish to log onto, I tell it #1 and then it gives me a
C:\windows prompt and stops. Doesn't lock up, i.e. caps and nums still
respond,
but that ain't for sure, so last time I typed exit, and it did indeed
exit.

Now I still have yet another drive loaded for this machine, but it has a
bad
error because I put word97 on it and it keeps asking for the XP disk to
replace
"outdated" files. I can however get safemode admin on it.

What if I copied the valid SAM files from the one that runs "right" to the
original. Even if I lose all the original accounts, I'll still have
drivers,,,,
or will I ??

Is this something you think might work ? I can indeed have all three
drives in
there with a CD drive, had it that way before. Just gotta be sure which
files
I'm putting where. Is this crazy plan even worth a try ?

There is yet one more thing, I know I'm learning as I go along, but any
idea
what I should charge this guy ? I know the nature of what I saved in the
way of
files, they are valuable to him. All this instead of him bringing the
disks and
simply format C: ! Also he doesn't have the disks so if this last ditch
effort
to save the OS doesn't work I'll be DLing drivers.

Also, I Google for those Linux disks, alot of hits come up, but there's
all
this runaround. One place is selling them ($195) but this is a utility and
everything on two floppies. I tried P2P, nothing. One site said I needed a
command line decompressor, now this would run in Linux, so not only do I
not
know the WINRAR commands, there's very little I know about the syntax in
the OS
itself, like how to open the program, just type it like DOS (I hope).

Would the old PKUNZIP run on NTFS ? I think I can remember enough. At this
point, both files named SAM are renamed, I'm thinking about going ahead my
the
"crazy" plan, put the working SAM files in. If it doesn't work I can
restore
everything to where it was. Back to shuffling harddrives I guess.

Again I am dubious about the odds of success. If you can just replace
these SAM
files at will there ain't much security, of course we do actually know
that.
The one advantage here though is that all the SAM files were generated on
this
particular PC, and the replacement will come from a HD of exactly the same
model. I think it pretty unlikely that I could just walk into anyone's PC
with
my own SAM files and take over, or could I ? WOW, what an idea.

At any rate any machine ID stuff in there would be the same.

The only thing that bothers me is that the same condition that caused it
to
crash is likely to still be there, a virus or 20, spyware, worms, who
knows.
then I'll have to deal witrh that. Lucky me.

As always your comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
Thanks
again.

JURB