[Help] Factory Reset on computer from work

My father in law gave me a laptop from his work that is shutting down. It's password locked and the admin account I tried to guess any usual password to no prevail.

It's windows 7 professional. I tried starting in safe mode and tools or whatever but it requested a password again with the username 'A'.

Is there any way to reformat it completely or should I just manually wipe the hard drive and get a new copy of windows?

Also I have my wife's laptop which she killed with Dr Pepper but the hard drive is good, they are different brands though but I'm pretty sure it's the same hard drive. Can I swap hers into it and run her operating system or will I have hell with the drivers of different hardware?

Thanks for your time and help!

 

You could swap harddrives from the old PC, but you will very likely run into hardware issues.

You have 2 options. Either get a linux password cracker disk, or format the system and install windows fresh.

I'd go with option 2. The laptop as you said, was used as a work system. There is likely a ton of programs and/or security settings specifically tailored for that business that you have no need for, and will only slow the system down. Formatting will give you a clean slate to work with.

 

Thanks the info Nano I'll probably do that.

 

Also just realized I said you'd run into "hardware" issues... Derp.

I meant driver issues, which I guess you gathered. Sorry!