Can't access Vista anymore.

Working on lining out my neighbors Dell machine.
Inspirion 531S
AMD CPU
!GB RAM
Vista Home Basic

Removed 7 useless items from the Startup list.
MalwareBytes found and removed 274 tracking and adware items.
SuperAntiSpyware found and removed 75 more.
Both required a reboot to finalize removal.
Used AbsoluteUninstaller to remove :
ALot toolbar
Ask toolbar
BearShare toolbar
Google toolbar.
Rebooted. Then the fun starts.
Administrator password which had been successful only minutes earlier is now invalid.
Cannot get into Safe Mode.
Starts to look like it.(black screen and showing that items are loading).
Then it's straight to Windows welcome screen with user(the Admin) account and Guest account.
Try the password again and still invalid.
Have tried Ophvcrack and it said "No password found", but still cannot get anywhere.
Have tried just clicking OK without typing any password.No go.
Tried 12345 (someone had told me that was the default password for Vista) No help either.
Any other directions I can turn?

 

The default password for Administrator on all versions of Windows since XP, including those from Dell is left blank.

It sounds like it may have been a malware affecting something like the wininit.exe.

If it were my only machine, I'd make a parallel install of Vista to access the user data, but go ahead and get the logs and list the removed startups as Kestrel suggests, hopefully there'll be some clues there.

 

Unfortunately, cannot get to those 2 logs.
Only account available is the guest,which cannot start or enter the programs. Keeps kicking up a box saying that an Administrator password is needed. The ones I removed from the startup was the toolbars mentioned and Roxio player (I think it was a player) and an iTunes downloader.
Do have the MalwareBytes log. Forgot I had sent it to my thumbdrive for my records.
Here it is,at least.
View attachment mbam-log-2010-08-16 (13-14-06).txt

This was saved before the reboot.

 

That, or boot to a live disk, Ubuntu or Mint, etc...might be easier/safer in the long run...

 

to satrow
Don't have a Vista disc.
Only have an OEM of XP Home.

 

Look again at post 4.
Stated that was before the finalizing mandatory reboot.
And did not transfer SAS log.:cry:-o

 

Wait, so the guest account is working perfectly fine aside from its usual limitations and not taking the admin password? How about Safe Mode, is that working?

 

to Mimsy Look 1/2 way down in post 1.
Safe Mode has been tried.

 

Have also removed the CMOS battery for 15 minutes to no avail.

 

Ugh. My bad. I blame the new shiny... I'm checking MGs while cleaning and oiling the blade, and it has me a bit side-tracked at times.

Have you tried this? Note that I have never tried it on Vista, only on XP. Also, when this one goes wrong it goes very wrong and breaks file systems, since it gives you the option to access all sorts of powerful registry settings. Read the FAQ and walkthrough and use at own risk, if you decide to try it out.

 

And, again - if you're going to use that utility, you'll have to burn it as an image from which to boot, so why not burn a Linux image while you're at it? Then you can grab all of the friend's data that needs to be saved, before this thing becomes a boat anchor...

 

Ladies and Gentlemen.
With your suggestions I have regained control of this Dell.
NTPASSWD couldn't do it. Said SAM was not loaded.
Trinity was able to get me to where I could go on as an Administrator (without a password) and remove the other user accounts password.
Upon switching users to the troublesome one, found it to be well behaved now.
Will be holding on to the Trinity disk I had burned.
Many thanks to all responses and assistance.
Will be updating and running new scans later and will post if allowed for review.What was already found were with 6 month old definitions.

 

I found the Trinity Rescue program, downloaded it and wrote it to a CD in the Joliet standard as a data CD. I restarted the computer with the DVD drive containing the CD as the first boot device and I can hear the drive reading the CD but then it goes to Windows. Is there an obvious mistake I'm making?

 

Nevermind, I found out how to burn an ISO image.