......what it is when I bought new computer I got the guy in the shop to take the C:drive out of my old computer and fit it into the new one as a D:drive...which is fine, except I can't access any of those files on the D:drive which were saved behind my WIN98 adminstrator password on the old machine, when what is now the D:drive was the C:drive....can't even look into the relevant directories with DOS (access denied)....anyone know how I can get at these files...I guess by booting up from the D:drive maybe, but how do I do that....?

typical newbie it's all me me me!

peace & love sisters & brothers

DrDxYou have tw3o drives that were SET up as primary partitions. The  easiest way to FIX this quickly is to download, burn and boot with a Linux Live CD and copy the files to the new main hard drive. you didn't give a description of your machine so try this Linux CD:

http://iso.linuxquestions.org/distro.php?distro=58

thanks GX1_Man

....bit scared of Linux, to be honest, but your response sort of compels me to engage with it at last....!

typical newbie, doesn't read the readme....my system information panel looks like this...

OS Name      Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version      5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer      Microsoft Corporation
System Name      SN038959820301
System Manufacturer      Packard Bell NEC
System Model      00000000000000000000000
System Type      X86-based PC
Processor      x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD ~2091 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date      Phoenix Technologies, LTD V7.0, 21/08/2004
SMBIOS Version      2.3
Windows Directory      C:\WINDOWS
System Directory      C:\WINDOWS\System32
Boot Device      \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale      United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer      Version = "5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)"
User Name      SN038959820301\user
Time Zone      GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory      512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory      71.45 MB
Total Virtual Memory      1.47 GB
Available Virtual Memory      785.78 MB
Page File Space      1.03 GB
Page File      C:\pagefile.sys

...if that makes any difference.

peace & love sisters & brothers

DrDxDo you have a CD burner and software that can burn an ISO file? If so just download and burn this CD and boot with it in your drive. It writes nothing to your hard drive, in fact you can even riun it in a machine with no hard drive present! Totally safe and will allow you to copy files at times when Windows won't. This Linspire version is the most Windows like, and is very easy to use.

Heck, you may not even be afraid of Linux after it solves this PROBLEM for you.Why not just boot to DOS (not a DOS window) and change to the d: drive. Find and delete *.psw associated with the admin account. Removing all the .psw files on d: will ELIMINATE all passwords for all accounts on that drive.Windows 98 password is not a secure feature. When you LOGON you can hit the escape key to bypass the logon entirely.Your right, it is not a secure feature. Passwords in W98 are stored in username.pswThat's why I think the password issue is irrelevant to this problem.