Vista - Recover Administrator Account

Hi All,
Hoping someone can help me.
I have recently got a Vista installed laptop back from a terminated
employee. The computer was part of the domain at one stage. However upon
termination of the employee I was asked to remove the computer from the
domain - in case we never get it back...but now it has arrived in my office.
The problem is that if I try to log on as a domain user or administrator it
tells me "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary
domain failed". This makes sense as the PC was removed from the domain.
So next I try to log in as the local administrator of the PC. The reply I
get is "This account has been disabled". This is the case when a PC is added
to a domain, and users are setup - the local administrator account is
disabled. Likewise with the 'Guest' account.
So my trouble is I can not login as a domain member, I can not log in as a
Guest, and the local Administrator account is disabled.
Any ideas on how I can actually log in to this PC would be greatly
appreciated. I can not get past the login prompt.
Remote access via a command line is not possible for all the same reasons
listed above.
Any ideas?

Re-installing the OS over the top without formatting seems to be successful.

"aSp" wrote:

> Hi All,
> Hoping someone can help me.
> I have recently got a Vista installed laptop back from a terminated
> employee. The computer was part of the domain at one stage. However upon
> termination of the employee I was asked to remove the computer from the
> domain - in case we never get it back...but now it has arrived in my office.
> The problem is that if I try to log on as a domain user or administrator it
> tells me "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary
> domain failed". This makes sense as the PC was removed from the domain.
> So next I try to log in as the local administrator of the PC. The reply I
> get is "This account has been disabled". This is the case when a PC is added
> to a domain, and users are setup - the local administrator account is
> disabled. Likewise with the 'Guest' account.
> So my trouble is I can not login as a domain member, I can not log in as a
> Guest, and the local Administrator account is disabled.
> Any ideas on how I can actually log in to this PC would be greatly
> appreciated. I can not get past the login prompt.
> Remote access via a command line is not possible for all the same reasons
> listed above.
> Any ideas?

aSp wrote:
> Hi All,
> Hoping someone can help me.
> I have recently got a Vista installed laptop back from a terminated
> employee. The computer was part of the domain at one stage. However upon
> termination of the employee I was asked to remove the computer from the
> domain - in case we never get it back...but now it has arrived in my office.
> The problem is that if I try to log on as a domain user or administrator it
> tells me "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary
> domain failed". This makes sense as the PC was removed from the domain.
> So next I try to log in as the local administrator of the PC. The reply I
> get is "This account has been disabled". This is the case when a PC is added
> to a domain, and users are setup - the local administrator account is
> disabled. Likewise with the 'Guest' account.


Actually, with Vista, both of the accounts are disabled by default,
regardless of domain or workgroup membership.


> So my trouble is I can not login as a domain member, I can not log in as a
> Guest, and the local Administrator account is disabled.
> Any ideas on how I can actually log in to this PC would be greatly
> appreciated. I can not get past the login prompt.
> Remote access via a command line is not possible for all the same reasons
> listed above.
> Any ideas?


You've got a computer that was in the hands of a potentially
disgruntled employee. Do you really want to mindlessly add that
computer back to your domain, regardless of the fact that said employee
might have loaded it with malware, out of spite?

Wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS and applications before
connecting it to your companies domain.


--

Bruce Chambers

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