Re-enabling floppy drive

[kagedmunky]

I know probably no one here will believe me but everyone here has been extremely helpful before. Here goes: I was tinkering around with my computer yesterday to make it more secure when I'll be damned it became so secure that even I can't access it anymore! I inadvertently disabled my floppy drive (so no spyware could be installed when I was away) and then I stumbled across this little syskey trick where you could have the OS require the insertion of a floppy disk with a key on it before booting. Wrong combination (don't know how yours truly could be so stupid)!

The situation is now I'm locked out of my computer (typing on a computer at the local university computer lab). When I got locked out I panicked because class starts Monday (Yikes) and I need my computer by then. Again stupidly enough (and in a panic) I managed to bypass syskey using a program. Big oops. Apparently if you do that your windows passwords aren't the same. I'm still locked out. I have the startup key disk and a password reset disk in my possession. I feel like if I could re-enable the floppy drive somehow I could actually use my password reset disk and everything will be fine! (or will it?) See the thing is windows password reset wizard is only reading D:\ but I don't even know if I can get the file from A:\ to D:\. I don't know where I would find another computer with an A and a D drive. How can I reenable the floppy drive without logging in to windows?!? Please help!

 

[nessyguin]

You can enable your floppy drive in BIOS (usually F2 on boot ) . Option 2 is to slave your HD i.e. get a new hard drive and instal windows on that , instal your current C drive as a secondary disk so you can access the data . Seriously , dont mess with password editors - they are by nature malicious .

 

[Flags]

Did you disable your Floppy drive in the bios?
If so, go back into the BIOS and renable it.

 

[TheOutcaste]

If you disabled the floppy in the Windows Device Manager, boot into the BIOS and see if it will let you change the drive letter from A: to B:. Windows might see it as a different device, and may even assign it the A letter. If not, hopefully the syskey program won't insist on the floppy being drive A.

But, if you need the floppy for windows to boot far enough to see the new floppy... catch22

GL

Jerry

 

[Cookiegal]

Please note that we no longer assist with password issues as we can't be sure of the actual situation or intent. Therefore, I've edited the first post to remove the reference to a program to obtain passwords.

I will leave this thread open but only for the purpose of changing the floppy drive letter. Unfortunately, beyond that, there's nothing we can do.

 

[kagedmunky]

Completely understandable Cookiegal! I was skeptical to even post that at first but I figured maybe it would help with the situation to know that I screwed things up big time and probably screwed them up even more by using that program (I had no idea what I was doing in a desperate, panicked attempt to regain access to my files...all 4 million of them that I've accumulated since getting the computer many years ago)! I'm currently in the process of just doing a repair install of XP so hopefully that will work! I'm getting an 'asms' error because my cd-rom drive is also disabled but I was on the Microsoft support website and think I found a fix so hopefully I'll be back up and running before class starts tomorrow! *fingers crossed*

P.S. the floppy drive IS actually enabled in the BIOS. It was disabled in the device manager which I can no longer gain access to since the whole situation is I invoked syskey to boot from a floppy disk but I forgot to re-enable the floppy disk in device manager before rebooting (which means syskey wasn't reading my startup key disk and I couldn't gain access to my OS). Since I tried (successfully) to bypass syskey in a desperate, panicked attempt to regain access to my system my original windows passwords are no longer working. I'm currently in the process of just doing a repair install of XP, however, I'm getting an 'asms' error because I also disabled the CD-ROM drive in the device manager which means Windows XP isn't reading the CD. The apparent fix for this is to hit SHIFT + F10 and at the command prompt type 'sysdm.cpl' to get into the system control panel where you can then access the device manager and re-enable or at least uninstall and reinstall the drive. I haven't tried it yet but I'm hoping it works!!

This sounds really advanced like I know what I'm doing but trust me it's only a result of HOURS/DAYS of research at my university library!! I obviously (judging by the stupidly wrong combination of syskey from floppy/disabling floppy) haven't a clue what the heck it is that I'm actually doing! Lol. I'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes! I might actually end up slaving the HD as nessyguin suggested (if I don't screw it up before then)!

 

[Cookiegal]

Please do post back with the results of your efforts and thanks for your understanding.

Good luck with it.

 

[kagedmunky]

Unfortunately this situation was becoming more trouble than what it was worth so I ended up going the "screw this none of those files were THAT important!" route. Essentially I ended up just wiping out my hard drive and starting all over again. I'm happy to report I'm actually typing from my home computer and it hasn't run this fast since the day I got it!

A word of advice though: the floppy drive AND the CD ROM drive were both still disabled when I tried to reinstall XP. The following error message kept popping up: "The file 'asms' on Windows XP Professional CD ROM is needed. Type the path where the file is located and then click OK. Copy files from: GLOBALROOT\DEVICE\CDROMO\I386" Again the CD ROM was disabled so it basically wasn't reading my XP reinstallation cd at this point. Upon researching this I found that when this error message pops up you can press SHIFT + F10 to bring up the command prompt. I typed 'sysdm.cpl' (without the quotes) to bring up the system control panel where I was then able to get into the device manager and reenable the floppy and CD ROM drives! Hooray for me! I thought I would never get back on my computer (even by reinstalling XP because I really started to panic when I discovered I also disabled my CD ROM too...I forgot all about that minor technicality)!

Even a computer technician at Staples couldn't help me...I figured if I talk to someone in person it would be a little less shady seeing as how no one on here believes that anyone could be such a moron and lock themselves out of their computer like that! Haha. The Staples tech pretty much told me I put myself into a 'you're screwed' situation and this problem would end up costing me hundreds of dollars to fix. So, yeah, I went the free route and just wiped everything out! No more syskey for me! I think I'd rather risk ID theft at this point (but I at least have a windows password which should hopefully be enough)!

Oh and P.S. whatever you do don't use syskey from a floppy...especially if you previously disabled your floppy drive and forgot to reenable it! Heed the warnings no matter how much more secure you think it will make your computer!! DON'T DO IT!!!

 

[jazz3000]

Lesson learned. LOL...Jazz