If someone steals my laptop, cant figure out my password is there anything they'll be able to do????/?

Question

to do, like reformatting windows, reinstalling windows to get past it or what can happen - what would they have to go through? ( i would already know to report it stolen though)


another question
umm i have to get a new battery,
okay, my computer powers up, logs straight onto windows itself, you can hear it when its logging on but all of a sudden the screen doesnt light up???whats wrong with it, i dont think i dropped, what do i do?

Answer 1

There's a saying in security.. "If someone has physical access to your computer, it's not your computer any more."

Basically, if they have your laptop, your data is not safe. They could still boot up another operating system and access the data. Even if you're using an encrypted file system, it can still be cracked.

Answer 2

I'm assuming your laptop has (or had) Windows XP. The answer is YES, even if it was password protected, it's very easy to access the data. They can remove the hard drive and place it in another system as a secondary drive. Under this configuration, the secuirty settings will not exist. They will be able to copy any files you had. I certainly hope you did not have anything very personal or important on there.

This can be prevented by using drive encryption. You'll be seeing this technology being used a lot more in the future.

In regards to your other question, the first thing I would do is try booting into safe mode. You may want to remove anything from the startup group to see if that is causing the problem. If you're familiar with MSCONFIG then you can disable anything in the startup. This is usually a good first step in troubleshooting.

Good luck

Answer 3

Well the second part of this two part question conflicts with the first part.

If you laptop boots right into Windows, a person who stole it wouldn't NEED the password. All they have to do is boot it up and they are in.

If you are thinking of creating a password and wonder what they could do if you had one, yes they could reformat the HD because this process will start before the authentication process. A hacker however would be able to hack your password given enough time, depending on the complexity of your password.

The screen problem is either a result of your display going bad, or your RAM is bad or needs to be reseated.

Answer 4

If it's the bios password, they'd have to get to the setup battery to reset it. Not too hard. If it's a Windows logon password they can just reinstall XP.

Answer 5

ok well this is a hack way. (Only works if you haven'y put a pass on a admin in salf mode)
1st when rebotting press F8 and load safe mode
2nd if there is a account called Administrator logon
3rd run>cmd
4th type net user (will give a list on login accounts)
5th select a user
6th type net user Peter * (replace Peter with acc name)
7th ask to change pass word
and your then done

use this only if your cpu is locked down or you forgot your pass

Answer 6

they could either just format your drive, junk it for parts, or replace the hard drive.

dont know about your screen. try taking it apart and checking the connection to the motherboard. but be careful, its somehwat tricky to get back together if you are inexperienced.