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Can't log in to the windows 2000 machine

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by auxperc

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I have a laptop that is on a domain at work. I brought it home to download backup work on my file server on my home network. I took the computer off the domain and put it in workgroup. Now I can't log on at all. What steps did I miss, and barring never doing this again, how can you properly set a machine up from a domain to a workgroup and back again. Also can you change the administrator password in the windows 2k recovery console?

10 replies

by brian

I don't know the best long term solution but to get back on the original network. While connected to the original Domain. Change back to workgroup and reboot. Then go right back to the Network Properties and change it back to join Domain.

by adeal

By changing back to workgroup, you disabled your domain account profile. You'll need to have a local machine account to sign on to, like the local administrator. You're out of luck otherwise.

by shanghai sam

Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer to your predicament, although I can tell you why it's happening. When you join a computer to a domain, a machine account is created. When you move the machine from a domain to a workgroup, that machine account is deleted. When you try to reconnect to the domain, you can't, because no machine account exists. You must go through the entire process of joing a domain.
To further complicate matters, depending on the time period between when you remove the computer form the domain and when you attempt to rejoin, and on the complexity of the network, the fact that the computer was removed from the network may not have completely replicated throughout the network. What this results in is the machinename still exists somplace in the domain, so you can't use the same machine name to rejoin the domain.
There may a way using a combination of hardware and user profiles to work around all this, but I haven't found that way yet.
Haven't found any recognized command in Recovery Console that would allow you to change any passwords.

by timwalsh

Repost from previous!
Unfortunately, there is not an easy answer to your predicament, although I can tell you why it's happening. When you join a computer to a domain, a machine account is created. When you move the machine from a domain to a workgroup, that machine account is deleted. When you try to reconnect to the domain, you can't, because no machine account exists. You must go through the entire process of joing a domain.
To further complicate matters, depending on the time period between when you remove the computer form the domain and when you attempt to rejoin, and on the complexity of the network, the fact that the computer was removed from the network may not have completely replicated throughout the network. What this results in is the machine name still exists somplace in the domain, so you can't use the same machine name to rejoin the domain.
There may a way using a combination of hardware and user profiles to work around all this, but I haven't found that way yet.
Haven't found any recognized command in Recovery Console that would allow you to change any passwords.

by mruiz

try logging as the administrator and log onto the local computer. To change the admin password you must log on as the administrator.

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