This one has me stumped...

[Maxheader]

3 - 4 years ago I bought an Acer Aspire..AXC-704G-UW61.
It had windows 10 and it worked lousy...so I put it away and
bought an Acer AXC-603G-UW 30...windows 8.1, Works fine.
So I wanted to fire up the 704G to see what files I might
have created and couldn't get past the windows login
screen..Forgot the password...Tried many ways to get
to a password reset screen...no luck..can't get past the
request for a password..tried to;

Restart your Acer laptop, press on the Alt and F10 key at the same time when power on. 4. Then you have three options to choose to reset your Acer laptop to factory default: Completely Restore System to Factory Defaults; Restore Operating System and Retain User Data; or Reinstall Drivers or Applications.

No luck...Password reset disk...no luck...Just a screen asking for a psswrd...

Help!

[byronius]

1. You're going to need an external utility -- Acronis, or something similar to boot from.

Norton Ghost -- there's a herd of them, probably find some shareware that does the same thing. Boot up from a USB or CD/DVD, copy your files, wipe that drive and reinstall.

[Maxheader]

4. Boot up from a usb?

I'll have to research that a little to understand..

[byronius]

6. Yes, it's pretty common these days. F-whatever to get to your setup screen, choose USB as boot-up

device #1.

Download Acronis or similar to a USB, stick it in, boot up -- should provide a utility to copy files.

[shraby]

2. Can you use system restore and restore it to a date just after you bought it?

Sometimes you can get at system restore when rebooting it.

[Maxheader]

5. I can get to a repair screen..

by stroking the 'alt' and pf10 during power up...And
have several choices..repair but leave files intact or
do a complete reinstall..both lead back to screen
requiring a password...Or, it says use a password
disk/flashcube...So I down loaded a password
reset file from a site...software for that said successful
download..tried it out on the locked putr...where it
ask for either a password or reset disk...It said
it wasn't a password disk...

No, I have no access to a restore screen...to anything.
It gives me a 'hint' for the password it is looking for...
YNK...? Haven't a clue..

[roscoeroscoe]

3. make a boot disk?

you can make a clean restore off the Microsoft support site. Need a USB flash drive with at least 16 GB, use your other PC to make it. Then boot the UW61 into BIOS and set up the BIOS to boot from the USB.

You can PM me if you wish, I was just doing these steps for a class.

[Maxheader]

7. Appreciate everyones help...I can get into the

bios, either pf12 or the 'del' buttons, don't remember...I will create the
restore file like you suggest..but I'm not sure if I've ever noticed a place
within the bios to boot the machine from another source...the usb...
It may be there and I just didn't understand what it was..

[Maxheader]

8. I think I'm starting to understand...

Start the computer and press ESC, F1, F2, F8 or F10 during the initial startup screen. ...
Choose to enter BIOS setup. ...
Use the arrow keys to select the BOOT tab. ...
To give a CD or DVD drive boot sequence priority over the hard drive, move it to the first position in the lis

[roscoeroscoe]

9. But

For Windows 10 I think it has to be a USB, too big to fit on a disk. If you have the USB prepared and plugged in when you boot up, it should be listed as a boot option.

[Maxheader]

10. When you say 'usb'...I have a

Sandisk with 65 gig of space...a few files. Would I
need to do anything to prepare it for a recovery
download?
thanks..

[roscoeroscoe]

11. Move everything off it to the hard drive

And verify its formatted for FAT32, I can send you the link tonight for the download if you want

[Maxheader]

12. Is that the link to format to FAT32?

That would be great..Tried downloading the Microsoft windows 10
tool...It wouldn't do it because this system is windows 8.1...I also
tried downloading Spower...Windows reset program..It burned ok onto
the zip disk .but the locked computer wouldn't recognize it as
a boot option...refereed to it as removable source...so I'm downloading
windows 8.1 now..and I'll make sure the zip disk is formatted correctly,
My system is a 64 bit operating system..

[blogslut]

13. Go to pendrivelinux.com

Linux is an operating system. There are many versions of free Linux-based Operating Systems which are called distros. Pen Drive Linux hosts boot-installer software that downloads and converts the Linux distro you want onto a USB stick. You turn off your computer, plug in the stick, press F-1 or F-12 (whichever's correct) and boot into Linux instead of Windows. From there, you can browse the files that are stored on the Windows partition of your hard drive. If you want to save something you can just save it to the same stick.

It's a bit of a learning curve but being able to run Linux from a stick lets you get into your old files when you're locked out of Windows or Mac OS, for that matter. It allows you to do other things too like wipe the whole drive so you can install as fresh version of Windows or some other OS.

I recommend you choose a version of Puppy Linux because it's tiny, easy to use, it runs totally from the stick and, for me, it works every time.

[Maxheader]

14. I'll give it a shot...

Kinda at a stop on restoring the locked computer..

[canetoad]

15. This program works

http://www.daossoft.com/products/windows-password-rescuer.html

Windows Password Rescuer. I've used it.

[Maxheader]

16. Thanks...

I'll put it on either a flash drive or dvd..

[canetoad]

17. I put it on

A small, newly formatted USB stick.

I was left with a Win 7 laptop to reload by a friend going on holiday. The machine didn't need to be passworded, so I just removed it. Worked like a charm.