when i log into my computer (laptop), message box is showned that "please change the password, ....days remained.". Whenever I see that message, I choose "cancel". Finally, the reamaining days was over. Message box tell me to change password. So, I have to click "OK".And I see Password Change dialogbox. But, when i change the passwsord, "Access Denied" like message was shown to me. I can't change my password and now I am in trouble because I can no longer log in to my account. Now I am in guest account. My friends told me to format my drive. But I wanna find better ways. On the other hand, I wanna recovery data from that account'desktop although I can backup data from drive C:\. Pls help me. Pls, hope quick reply from computing.net and other friends

If you're running XP, and if it's actually your laptop, booting in safe mode should make an "Administrator" account available. In a regular XP install, the account often has no password. From there you should be able to go into the control panel and reset your account's password. If you're running 2000, though, or if the laptop is a company one that's been set up by IT, things are a bit more complicated. There's a NT password reset disk out there...but it doesn't always work, especially on 2000, and in severe cases can make it so even an admin can't log in. (BTW...obviously, if you change the password for Administrator, IT will eventually know about it -- and they will NOT be happy. If it's their laptop, and you value your job, don't do that.) Also note: your encrypted stuff on the drive is actually encrypted with a key which is either based on, or itself encrypted or secured with, your password...I forget which. In any case, changing your password by any method other than logging in as you and using the password reset dialog, may make those files unrecoverable. Anything that's not encrypted, though, should be accessible (assuming you successfully reset the password).