There are a number of free pw recovery &/or reset programs out there.

Check out this post & good luck.  Also you are gonna need another computer & some blank CD's to download & burn the programs.


http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm

~John



________________________________
 From: don penlington <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 8:45 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Lost Password
 
Harriet writes:

<<I have a Dell  studio, win 7 home, and somehow my pw won't work... I  have
it written down, but no matter how many times I put it in there.. it still
won't work.  This is the right pw cause I have the date I reset it which
was the other day.  >>

In addition to Paul's excellent long-shot comments (try a space at the beginning also), I'm wondering why you needed to change the password in the first place. Was there a problem before you tried to change it? (This might indicate a corruption in the system files).

Is this a Windows 7 password, or a bios password? (ie at what stage of the boot process does it ask for the password---very early before Windows starts to load, or after Windows has loaded?).

The reason I ask is that if it's a laptop ( you didn't say), when ordering a Dell laptop, you can request a bios password to be inserted at the bios (the theory being that this helps prevent theft). They may do it for desktops too, I don't know.

If it's a bios password set at the factory, this can only be changed by the Dell factory, upon proof of ownership. I've no doubt they are also likely to charge an arm and a leg for this service. I've no idea what would happen if a bios password were to fail thru corruption, but I guess the whole computer would have to be returned to the Dell factory. Or maybe their Dell service reps might have a way of fixing such failure. It would be interesting to know, even though it would be a very rare fault.

Don Penlington

                 Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
              articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                         http://freepctech.com

            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                   http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml