Windows 2000 - HELP !!! System inaccessible !!!

[Simon666]

Hi!! My brother has made his system of Windows 2000 inaccessible . He took his workcomputer home to run some simulations. To connect with his home-computer, he changed the networkidentification (domain -> workgroup) and LAN properties to reflect those of his Home LAN. Now, of course, when he starts up the PC and enters his password, it displays an errormessage that he can not be logged on ("make sure your User name and Domain are correct"). I would think you can specify your domain somewhere, but you can't. He came to me for help, but I have no idea. Any idea how he can resolve this issue? Or at least access his data from the disk?

[TheCPUWizard]

If your computer is not part of a domain, it will not ask for a domain login....

If he does not know a local account name/password [possibly someone in the IT dept at work has the local administrator account] then he will not be able to log in.

To make matters more interesting, If the volumn is formatted NTFS and was secured [encrypted], he just basically made all of his data inaccessible. In this case even re-joing in domain would not (necessarily) restore access to the data.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Now if the data is NOT encrypted on the drive...

1) Pull the drive [at least the cables]
2) Install new drive [blank]
3) Install Windows 2000 on new drive
4) Configure "real" drive as a secondary or slave
5) Pull the data off the "real" drive.

ps: You don't even want to think about what I charge for this proceedure when I have to do it for a client....