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From: Jeff on 31 Dec 2009 11:47
Jeff wrote ...
> <snip>
> > I have not used it in a while, but I think you just plug it in (with the
> > machine off), then turn on the machine, let it complete POST, turn it
> > off and remove the dongle.
>
> Well, since your "secret" service manual says to use the parallel port
> dongle to remove lost passwords on this model, I think I'll try that first
> and hope for the best. The machine is worthless as is, so there's not
much
> to lose...

Well, I have good news and confusing news to report...
The dongle worked as advertised. I booted with it installed, powered down
and removed it, then restarted the machine. I was able to change the boot
device and enter BIOS with the ability to change the boot order, etc.

I then ran the recovery process. The ghosted image restored and then, when
the machine restarted, I got the same problem that started it all... the
WinXP splash screen came up, the progress bar completed one pass and then
the video froze and showed a ghosted image of the WinXP logo off to the
right of the real one and the two images were displayed in alternating
vertical stripes, almost as thought you were looking through vertical
blinds. There were also 4 or 5 thin vertical stripes that were flashing as
though video was being displayed though them like it used to if you used an
older monitor with a new system that couldn't display things properly. At
that point, there was no further boot progress.

In order to do a bit more troubleshooting, I booted the system with a live
Linux CD - it booted and ran OK. I then tried installing Ubuntu. It
started and then the screen went wonky again, with pixellating lines all
over. I then repartitioned it, ran scandisk on the hard drive overnight (no
errors), and reran the recovery process. Same shadow image when the XP
splash screen appears - and it does this both during the ordinary booting
process as well as during an attempted safe mode boot.

As I was typing the above, I remembered one other thing I meant to try. I
reset the BIOS to default values and reran the recovery process - still a
messed up WinXP splash screen after the progress bar makes 2 or 3 passes.

If anyone has ideas, I'd be grateful for the help.



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