Password Lockout - No Boot with Knoppix :-/

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited March 2004 in Hardware
NOTE: This thread is in no way implying means to logon to computers to which one does not have lawful/appropriate access.

Wishing to tune up my daughters laptop - she is home on spring break, I attempted to connect her laptop to my home workgroup so that I could copy files from my desktop computer. Unfortunately, I went through the procedure too fast and somehow invalidated her system (WinXP Pro) login. We can't enter Windows now. I think what I did was accidentally changed here existing logon protocol from her school's Exchange server to my home workgroup, instead of just adding the workgroup as a new connection.

It was recommended to me to download Knoppix-STD 0.1; that I could boot with a Knoppix CD; to use integral tools to reactivate my daughter's Windows password.

DON'T know if it works or not. I can't get her computer to boot from CD with Knoppix media I burned. It's an ISO file. I also tried the same CD with my desktop, with both my burner and the CD-ROM. No boot. As far I can tell, the file is good. Other than setting the computer BIOS to boot from CD, are there any other steps I should do? I used Windows XP Pro's integral burning software to make the CD.

I really feel about locking out my daughter. She can get the computer reconfigured at her school, but she'll have precious little time for that and depends on her laptop for most of her research and homework.

Thanks,

Leo

Comments

  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Leo,

    Try this http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/
    Download the software to make a boot cd. Then follow the instructions on the site.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Thank you, Sir. I'll give it a try.

    But, can anyone tell my why my computers wouldn't boot of the Knoppix ISO?
  • Park_7677Park_7677 Missouri Member
    edited March 2004
    Leonardo wrote:
    But, can anyone tell my why my computers wouldn't boot of the Knoppix ISO?

    Does it boot other CDs? Does it try with the Knoppix and fail or just not try at all?
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited March 2004
    Did you burn it to be bootable?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Did you drag and drop the .ISO on the disc? If so, that's why it won't work.

    You can't burn an image to be "Bootable," mmonnin. It either complies with El Torito bootable CD spec, or it doesn't. And that's solely determined by having a bootcat on the opening sectors of the disc.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited March 2004
    I mean did he burn it as a regular file or did he go to CD ROM (boot) in the Nero Compilation.
  • JakeJake Alec Baldwin's Chest Hair
    edited March 2004
    mmonnin wrote:
    I mean did he burn it as a regular file or did he go to CD ROM (boot) in the Nero Compilation.

    That's not how he'd want to do it either. It's an ISO that he has, not an IMA. So, Leo, if you previously just dropped the ISO in Nero and burned the disc, that won't work. Instead, open Nero (not Nero Express), cancel out of the wizardy dialogue box, click the Recorder menu item, go to Burn Image, browse to the location of your ISO file, and double click it. You'll know what to do from there.

    If you ARE using Nero Express, just click the Disc Image or Saved Project button from the main menu and browse to your ISO, double click, etc....
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    windows will only burn ISOs as ISOs, in other words, if you look at the cdrom in windows explorer, you will see the ISO on there. you need to use nero or some other cd burning utility to burn the ISO and it will extract the data correctly and create a knoppix cd for you.
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Another thing... If she is still using the nice gui/ picture multiple user login screen and not the old typed login, the local admin account may still be using a blank password. Try holding down Ctr+Alt+del until the picture type login changes to the older style and use the Administrator account with a blank password.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Did you drag and drop the .ISO on the disc? If so, that's why it won't work.
    Yes, I did drag and drop. (Copied the file to the CDRW drive virtual folder; then executed "Write these files to disk"). That it explains it then. How should I have done it? EDIT: OK, I read the explanation above.
    the local admin account may still be using a blank password
    Nope, it was password protected, I had to 'blank' it (see accolades below).

    Necropolis, your fix worked PERFECTLY! Yippee. You are the man! :respect:
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Yes, Nero will make a 9660 ISO these days, older ones need to be helped with special settings to recognize not to make the ISO as a Joliet ISO that is not Rockridge also.

    While I do make cds of ISOS as data CDs, I do so for archive reasons. But, drag-and-drop will typically NOT give you a bootbale CD, though it will give you an ISO you can upload to computer again if your archive HD has to be cleaned every once in a while.

    HTH.

    John D.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Necro: Thanks for pointing me to that - that is a great tool :)

    Poor Leo.. Him and I were about to go stumbling around like fools with this Knoppix STD disk... Him and I, linux n00bs ;D
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Well then, Prime, maybe it's a good thing I didn't burn the Knoppix correctly! ;D

    OH BTW, all my daughter's previous network settings are now gone. Boy, I really did a number on that. Her sys admin ought to be able to reconfigure her Outlook client pretty fast. Apart from that, all is in good order again.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    What a great way to spend your birthday ;D
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    Necro: Thanks for pointing me to that - that is a great tool :)

    Poor Leo.. Him and I were about to go stumbling around like fools with this Knoppix STD disk... Him and I, linux n00bs ;D

    Prime,

    do this:

    Boot from CD.

    Choose English, default language is German-- I once got it in French default by mistake also, so be warned default language probably will not be UK English even. The SuSE 9.0 Live CD is mucho better, it is available on ftp://ftp.sunet.se or ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu for broadband only and only for FTP and not httpable ftp on sunet. Sunet is faster by about 1% better throughput than Penn State (psu.edu). Penn State fed ISOs at about 386 KB\sec average yesterday and part of today.... BOTH mirrors are public access, AFAIK.

    Let it load, choose KDE if it asks, but you should come up in a GUI-- KDE 3.1.4 or KDE 3.2. It is remarkably Windows-ish. For an00b, print the PDF or txt files on the ISO from Windows first. AFAIK, you CAN boot it to Gnome, but Gnome will be more strange than KDe to a pwerson used to windows. The good thing about it, is that ~TK will be able to help with the CLI, it has some functions much like BSD with a lot of the BSD flagging enabled. Others will be wierd, but AFAIK it DOES know to do MAN and INFO output if you want to explore the commands available. nice explore tool, a B***H (aka PITA majorwise) to install. I cursed at the installer subroutine when it started talking to me in German text.... :D

    DO NOT install, installing Knoppix is NOT for n00bs-- please do not even try on an XP box, it will want the WHOLE HD for starters and you will be using command line interfaces to install the thing to part of a HD on a Windows that is pre-2000 for very best results. Just let it run in RAM. The ebst install directions I found were in German and I wiped a drive for it, never got it running, went to other distros. But to learn your way around the GUI, it is neato.

    Unless you have used cfdisk before, do not try to install this to HD.

    John D.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    i'm not THAT much of a n00b, john ;D

    But thanks for the advice :D
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    i'm not THAT much of a n00b, john ;D

    But thanks for the advice :D

    I did not say that first, and the most common thing I have had to warn users about is to not install it, they like it so much-- and do not expect a CLI install until too late.... It just does not have kernel 2.6.3 in it yet, AFAIK, and that means no writing to an NTFS volume period much less resizing one.... :D Knowing you know some BSD, I thought you might want to look at how the thinker structured his CLI stuff.... Lots of it, with your experience, you will have fewer issues than I in some respects, but I would not want Leo to try and follow you too far either.... :D Not right now....

    Installing Knoppix is more or less LFS (linux from scratch) for most MODERN hardware. And this live CD is not as safetied as the SuSE live or MandrakeMove CDs are....
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    but I would not want Leo to try and follow you too far either....

    Not to worry, John. Our intent was just to take it bit by bit - glad we didn't. The ONLY reason I downloaded Knoppix STD was for the password tools. I'm not really interested in any Linux version at this time.
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