Changed domain locks out user

[Jimi_l]

Hi all,

I'm in some real dutch here and perhaps you can help. My sister's company (MAJOR corp) laptop has some college papers on it she wanted to burn to cd for backup. I told her to bring it over and we could plug it into my LAN and burn them on my desktop's CDR. I plugged it in and because it was already set for DHCP and file sharing it was assigned a local IP address. While I could "see" her company domain from my PC, I could not see folders or files. I read that I may need to add my domain to her laptop so I did that and now i'm hosed. The machine will no longer boot past the login window. Her user and pass are no longer recognized and it refers to "make sure the domain and user name are correct". There is no way to pick which domain I would like to use and my machine has no user or pass so essentially we are locked out totally.

I tried to boot in safe mode, safe mode with DOS prompt and last known good config but all end up back at the login window. While I found a password "workaround" involving a bootdisk and brute force password application, the laptop has no floppy drive so that is out. She claims the admin's set up each laptop and then confiscated all the floppy drive attachments(a hint perhaps?)

I find it difficult to believe that one small change in the network settings would permanently lock out a valid user with no warning or chance at resetting it. Is there any hope for getting back in or "resetting" the domain from DOS(with a bootable CD perhaps)? She could be SEVERELY diciplined for this and I feel like a total head for screwing it all up.

I know some of you are thinking "ya right" another kid looking for a security hack, but I will gladly provide anyone with a solution any information they wish to authenticate this story. I'm in real trouble here!!!

TIA,

Jim Layton
jim@jlproduction.com

[Greenstead]

You changed it from a domain to a workgroup?
Maybe some clever hack knows better, but I think you're stuck.

Take it back to the office and call the helpdesk and say the password isn't working. They will give a new password. Call back and say it still doesn't work. They will send a guy to check the laptop. He will scratch his head and ask questions. Look simple and clueless. He will login locally with his admin user ID and password and change it back to the company domain (can only be done when connected to the domain).

Next time when you want to access it at home you log in with the company domain (which it will not find) and when you click on the laptop PCname from your PC, for sister's user ID enter \\companydomainname\userID

[vothweirdon]

What your sister should do is call the helpdesk and tell them that the machine was removed from the domain. They are used to that and they can re-add it back in a matter of minutes.

From now on, map a drive using her IP address \\ipaddres\share and when it prompts for a username and password use: domainname\username and the password.


We see this all the time in the company that I work for. I have worked hard at getting this knowledge out so that it happens less and less.

Voth Weirdon

[Jimi_l]

That seems to be the ticket.

She called the help desk and told them what we were doing and they said "no sweat". Apparently it DOES happen all the time and they can reset it with an admin login and password over the phone.

Thanks all,

Jimi_l