Need some assistance on Windows Lockdown?!?!?

I have a Sony Vaio laptop out of its warranty.... I'm currently running Window's XP. Sadly enough, someone has changed my window's login pw. Since this new pw was put in on the intention of me not using my pc, now im in the position where im extremely screwed. Would there be a way to get in without formatting, because i've got some extremely important work that was on that machine. Any programs or methods without opening the pc....ANYTHING!!! Plz help me. thx

P.S. This was done as a prank to me, im the owner of the laptop. & the reason why i rather not delete it is because i've got work that might cause me my job.

Was the password that was changed your Admin password or your user account? If it wasnt your admin you can login with that and change your other one back.

To do that if Administrator doesnt show on the login you need to go to the login. Then hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete twice and then a login like on Windows 2000 will be shown. Type in Administrator and your admin password.

EDIT: If it was a prank get the pranker (guy that pranked you) to remove that password. Hopefully you know who did it and so on.

If your admin account is locked out...

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

Tell me if that article helps at all...

If you need a boot disk that might help out...

http://ultimatebootcd.com/

that disk contains this tool...

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

Good luck!!

<edit> for the optimial solution, you have to rename a system file and copy cmd.exe (renamed to that system file) into its' place. The system directory will be system32 (see top link for more information, read the bottom). Can you do the renaming and alike from the Windows XP CD in recovery mode (IE, make XP's disk boot into the recovery console text mode thing...)?

The reason why is if this person can rename that file (LOGON.SCR) then they can (should be able to) copy cmd.exe from a floppy disk (renamed to logon.scr) and then access the system by that unique trick at the bottom of that page (sidenote, I hope a windows update didn't break that!). Sidenote, cmd.exe can also be found in your system32 folder, so you might be able to copy that file into another file via the command (copy cmd.exe logon.scr), just make sure you run the command (copy logon.scr logon.bak) first (that or (rename logon.scr logon.bak))!

Do you think that explaination might work?</edit>

<edit 2> Blah, I forgot recovery console needs the admin password first... sorry!! However, if you had a way of accessing a windows NTFS file system... well, perhaps that nifty trick really needs another windows install... grrr </edit 2>

Thx guys, i'll see what i can do. for the 1st link

If your admin account is locked out... http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_admin...or_password.htm

Click to expand...

. I've tried both & no luck :-\. I'll try the other links & see this actually works :'(. Yes i do know the person. The reason this a-hole did it was because i've had better material than him in most of the projects that i've done. This would be the last time that i'd leave my laptop alone for a quick sec.....

Depending on how bad you need to do this there is another way to get to the information. You will need 2 things first a small (laptop) USB drive case and another computer, I have done this many times on bad drive to retrieve information. You just put you drive in the USB case and then USB it and you will be able to explore the drive.
If you need more info on this send me a PM