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Minor Problem...Well ok HUGE PROBLEM!!!

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by mrbusinessman

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My roommate hacked into my computer one time when he was upset with me and I was tinkering around with some settings in order to make my computer more secure. As stupid as it may sound I disabled the floppy drive in the device manager and then I stumbled across this "syskey" trick and since my bedroom door doesn't have a lock on it I thought "WOW! What a great idea to keep my computer secure when I'm away! I'll give it a shot!" The gist of things is now I'm typing from a computer at my university because I forgot to re-enable my floppy drive and my startup key disk isn't working. I'm locked out! The floppy disk seems to be recognized by my BIOS giving me the message about a non system disk and telling me to take is out and press any key to continue. When the syskey "Windows XP Startup Key Disk" window appears though the disk doesn't seem to be recognized. The ready light doesn't come on and I don't even hear it reading the disk before a message pops up that says "The startup key file was not found on the disk in drive A:. Please insert the correct disk." I'm quite certain the file is there and I'm not using a bad disk (I checked it on the university computer). How can I get past syskey to reenable the floppy drive? I downloaded "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor". Is there a way to change a registry setting to enable the disk drive from that (or any other) program without having to modify any syskey settings or cause any major damage? BTW I'm using EFS to encrypt a lot of my files. I have my EFS certs/private key backed up and like I said I even have my startup key disk for syskey. I think I just need to re-enable the drive somehow?

Honestly, this is Microsoft software we're talking about! There's gotta be a way around this...

UPDATE: Well I managed to bypass syskey but now my passwords aren't working. Should I be happy? Sad? I honestly don't know. I'm hoping there is a way to get the passwords, login, re-enable the floppy drive and then put everything back to the way it was including re-enabling syskey. Maybe I have high hopes? Especially for someone who doesn't know what they're doing! This is giving me a headache (literally)!

23 replies

by ic-it

Probably not the one you want to hear.
Use your XP CD to do a Repair.
No one here will show you how to bypass security. How would we even know if your story is true or if you are looking for a hack?

by mrbusinessman

Will that delete the 4 million files already on my computer? I don't have access to my Win XP CD right now...it's 100 miles away at my parents house but I could have them bring it to me at least. I just don't want to lose all my data! (Which may already be too late as I managed to bypass the syskey but now my administrator password isn't working...the same password that I've always logged in with for years. I read that does something to something that I just don't understand but I was willing to take the risk. I really can't be without a computer when classes start! And I need to feed my internet addiction somehow without constantly having to leave the apartment to do it! Lol.)

by the scummy one

that you arent just trying to crack into someones system???
Sniff -- sniff -- I smell a rat b@stard cracker wannabe!!

by mrbusinessman

Yeah right. My roommate was the one who broke into my computer. I was just trying to make it more secure. Unfortunately I'm an idiot and If you know absolutely no technical details about computers I've learned you shouldn't try to make it more secure. I'm pretty sure at this point I should've just risked identity theft!

by older mycroft

So who's to say you're not lying all the way through too ??

I mean, who in their right mind would invoke a floppy-driven syskey - then disable the Windows floppy driver ?

I can't believe anyone could be that stupid.
Therefore I don't believe you! ;)

by mrbusinessman

Very funny. Well not for me anyway. I'm on spring break right now. Classes start Monday and I NEED to have access to my computer. I managed to bypass the syskey but I think my system is probably totally destroyed by now. You got it all wrong...I in my right mind would disable the floppy disk so my roommate couldn't access it when I was away then invoke a floppy driven syskey forgetting to re-enable the floppy driver. Trust me I'm not a hacker...I have no idea what I'm even doing!!! At this point I'm desperate because I don't want to say bye bye to the 4 million files that are on my computer!!!! Argh this is so frustrating!!

by mrbusinessman

Well I guess we know it's secure at least! Even I can't access my own computer! Lol. This sucks but I'm going to keep trying anyway. Setting syskey was a risk I was willing to take to make my computer more secure...losing the data on there is not. I'm sure it would speed things up a lot but I don't want to have to reinstall everything! I even HAVE the key disk in my possession...afterall it is MY key disk for MY computer! This probably could have been solved if I wouldn't have panicked and tried to bypass syskey to begin with and was successful at it.

by dumphrey

stupid...
But that does not mean I believe him... just that people can really be dumber then a box of rocks.

by mrbusinessman

And like you said who in their right mind would disable their floppy drive and then enable syskey unless it was someone who doesn't know what the hell they're doing?!? I mean, seriously, even if the computer was someone else's I'm sure that person wouldn't have done this! Yes, this is one of those things I feel that could only have been accomplished yours truly! I'm a smart one! Lol.

Anyway help or not I'm going to keep going and hope I can get into my own computer sometime soon. Let's just hope I do some more damage! Hahaha. Sigh. This is ridiculous! Looks like maybe it's time to call Microsoft and/or Dell and see if they can't help me. Although I'm a college student so I really can't afford to absorb the cost of tech support right now.

by oh smeg

Get a Copy of Boot & Nuke boot off the floppy and Nuke the HDD.

http://tinyurl.com/4rfur

Then install everything from scratch enabling what you need as you go along. I've found from past experience that it's always faster to do things this way rather than attempt to repair after the event. Naturally you'll need to access your Data from your Current Backup after you complete the install.

Col

by dawgit

It will be really hard to fix a problem if you don't really know what the cause was.

Step 1, Find roommate.

Step 2. Have roommate explain exactly what he/she did to muck-up your computer.

Note: "Waterboarding" is Legal in the US

Step 3, Reverse that.

Problem solved, nice and simple. -d

by Former member

And install this, DO NOT TAKE OUT YOUR OLD FLOPPY DRIVE, this floppy will come up as "B" in your "bios", then you can then run your software form there.
Hope this helps you.

Please post back if you have more problems or questions.

by mrbusinessman

Funny thing is I've asked myself the same question! Haha. I think I'm gonna go stand out on the street corner tomorrow morning and shout "Here ya go world you can have this crappy thing!" I'm just going to start pushing it on people! Lol.

by mrbusinessman

Came up with a simple solution. Since I've decided that none of my files were that important anyway I just ended up wiping out the hard drive and starting over again. I'm glad I did! My computer is running faster than it ever did in the past few years! A bit of advice: my CD-ROM drive was also disabled so to get that going again in order to reinstall XP I had to hit SHIFT + F10 when I got an error about 'asms'. That brings up the command prompt where you can type in 'sysdm.cpl' to bring up the system control panel and from there I was able to reactivate my floppy and CD ROM drives, reinstall the OS and I'm slowly gaining momentum once again! No more syskey for me!! I think I really am just going to risk identity theft this time (but at least I have a windows password so hopefully that'll be enough)!

by Former member

Why not put a password in your "bios" settings. That way on bootup the computer will ask for a password from the bios.

Please post back if you have more problems or questions.

by mrbusinessman

I tried this but the strange thing is the password I entered wasn't the password. I had to reset the BIOS just to get past the BIOS password screen because it wasn't accepting my password.

It's a good option though because my computer chassis is locked so I'm not concerned about anyone getting in there to reset the BIOS unless they completely broke apart the plastic case of the computer (in which case I would definitely know that someone tried to access my computer)!

by dumphrey

can't hurt if you are really paranoid. Chassis locks are not exactly rocket science....
Just make sure to make a recovery key and store it on a flash drive that you keep on you 24 x 7.

by dumphrey

I have just seen to many "hay y'all watch this" moves in my life...

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