NTPASSWD, found with google lets me reset the admin password in less than 5 minute and is free. Some are put off by the menu which uses numbers instead of a GUI+Mouse but it works.
At least you can get past that hurdle in under 5 minutes.
There are other boot CDs such as UBCD and Hirens that you find with google that have hard drive test apps.
Given the price of a HDD versus a new PC, a HDD around here is cheaper.
Bob
The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6000 running WinXP home;
While installing software (VLC from their website) i suddenly got the blue screen with the "stop: 0x00004 0r f4" error message.
When i reboot, windows starts to boot with the win logo and progress bar , takes quite a while then displays the blue screen for a few minutes , then it beeps once or twice and i get the no hard drive error on black screen with press F1 to continue or F2 to go into the bios .
The hard drive does not show anymore.
After a while it skips the blue screen , just the Win logo and progress bar then the no hard drive found message.
If i go into the bios first thehard drive shows.
If i try to boot in safe mode it just reboots then i get the HDD error message.
I have booted from a Linux live cd , it works for a few minutes then freezes completely.
I have tried the repair console, all i could get to be done was the fixboot bit , this admin does not have a password for her account , so apparently it works only if you have a password.This is a friend's computer.
After checking the memory , i took a drive from an old computer (10GB).....and it worked perfectly both in windows and Linux.
So i came to the conclusion that the original drive is kaput.
Did i miss anything ? Just wondering if anything coul be done for the original drive , this being an old machine i do not know if it is worth the cost of a new hard drive plus XP's reinstallation. Thank you in advance.

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