I locked my self out of my computer help

[robertsheets]

I have a 10 year old dell inspiration laptop and I dropped it yesterday and now when it fires up it ask for the primary password and administrative password. I have been using my newer computer running windows seven for over a year and do not remember these old passwords and I would like to get the dell running windows xp online for my daughter. I cannot even get it to boot in safe mode to change the passwords or anything. Can anyone help me get into it. Please my daughter is so upset with me and I cannot afford to get her a new one.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

If you have the recovery CD/DVD you can reinstall XP.

 

[Abeloy]

Ophcrack

 

[nhasian]

You have most likely damaged your hard disk. you can try doing a fresh install of windows but I suspect you will need to replace the hard disk.

 

[JOJCAN]

If you have the recovery CD/DVD you can reinstall XP.

MY PROBLEM IS THAT I HAVE THE XP DISK AND TRYING TO INSTALL IT BUT IT SHOWS THE DVD DISK IS DISABLED AND I DON'T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO ENABLE IT - ANY SUGGESTIONS?

 

[wombat_tg]

MY PROBLEM IS THAT I HAVE THE XP DISK AND TRYING TO INSTALL IT BUT IT SHOWS THE DVD DISK IS DISABLED AND I DON'T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO ENABLE IT - ANY SUGGESTIONS?

You'd enable it in the BIOS, which you should not need a password for. If the BIOS isn't seeing the DVD drive, it's highly likely there's a physical cause.

Assuming the Inspiron WAS working prior to you dropping it, I'm with Nh on this- you physically damaged components in the machine.

Given it's a 10yo laptop there's no good reason (or way) to fix it. You will easily pay $200+ in labor for somebody to take it apart and determine the problem(s). For that price you can easily replace it with something much, much better. Unless you want to try to do a repair yourself for your own education there's no reason to bother.