Windows 2000 Signon Screen

[piloteer]

Picked up a number of Dell mini towers at an auction with 2000 installed.
No matter what I tried including the UBCD I still can't ge past the screen.
I even reset the BIOS, used everything on the UBCD including Part Magic to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[iptech]

Changing anything in the BIOS won't make a single jot of difference, what on earth makes you think it would? I would guess these machines were originally on a domain and you need to select the option to log on to the local machine although you will have to remove the local administrator password first. UBCD should allow you to navigate around the file system unless it's encrypted. Like the BIOS, Part Magic will not change a thing for the logon options.

It would be useful if you posted a screen image of the logon screen you're presented with as it may also be possible that a third-party network management system such as Netware was used.

If you're looking to sell these on I would simply just nuke'n'pave them with a fresh Windows install as the chances are the existing OS build will be locked-down with policy objects and domain-dependent links. Don't expect to get much for Windows 2000 PCs though, it's long out-of-date and no longer secure enough for Internet enabled machines.

 

[piloteer]

Did exactly that. Installed a larger harddrive and installed a fresh XP

 

[Kitten Kong]

Did exactly that. Installed a larger harddrive and installed a fresh XP

Questions, how much did you pay for these machines?

What spec were they, when you bought them, what spec are they now?

How much are you thinking of selling these machines for?

Did you purchase a separate license key for each pc your selling?

If the answer to the last question is yes, then I think you could be onto a major loss. As I cant see any value in a win 2000 spec machine, (obviously dependant on spec), together with upwards of $100 for a XP license, and the time taken to install windows etc.

I would be very interested to hear your answers to the above please.

 

[Alan22]

Questions, how much did you pay for these machines?

What spec were they, when you bought them, what spec are they now?

How much are you thinking of selling these machines for?

Did you purchase a separate license key for each pc your selling?

If the answer to the last question is yes, then I think you could be onto a major loss. As I cant see any value in a win 2000 spec machine, (obviously dependant on spec), together with upwards of $100 for a XP license, and the time taken to install windows etc.

I would be very interested to hear your answers to the above please.

Same here. First thing I thought was "what are you going to do with these systems?" Now that you installed XP, do they have a legal XP COA? What did it cost and how much do you think you can get out of them? I'm thinking these systems are circa 2000-2003. They may have value to someone, but the question is how much value.