Come on Down to Butch's Broken Computers Emporium!

So my computers all decided that they hate me and that it was about time to break.

First stop, my main computer. The problem is that one of my drive, my C:\ drive, primary master, actually, happens to revert to PIO mode for absolutely no reason whatsoever. That means shitty performances, and beside, that's not normal to begin with. I've checked in the BIOS, and there doesn't seem like there's any option that could force the drive to revert to PIO mode. Now I'm sorta out of idea. The other drive on my primary channel is using DMA as it should, although I've noted that, unlike the drives on my secondary channel, Windows says the mode is "Ultra DMA Mode" instead of "Ultra DMA Mode 5" or whatever other number. That second drive is a bit old though, so that might just be the problem. My motherboard is a somewhat old Asus A7N8X Deluxe, and the drive is an older 60GB maxtor drive, but not old enough to be using PIO. And spare me the usual "Maxtor is shit. That's the problem." It's the first time I've had trouble with a maxtor drive, and this particular one has essentially been running non-stop for the last 5 years. On the other hand I recently lost all my data on a 160GB WD drive which was less than a year old, and another 160GB WD, just as new as the other one, is making unpleasant sounds lately. There.

Second problem, and this one I find somewhat funny, in a "Uh, ok, how the hell did that happen?" way, my password doesn't work on my laptop anymore. No, I have not lost my password. It simply doesn't work when I enter it, Windows giving me a "wrong password" error. Yes, I've checked if the capslock key was on. Yes, I've restarted a few times just to make sure. No, I'm sure I haven't changed it and forgotten because I was drunk at the time or something like that. About an hour before it stopped working, I booted my laptop, which was in "hibernate" mode, or whatever the name is, entered my password, and logged in fine. I proceeded to copy files from my main computer to my laptop, then connected to the internet for roughly 30 seconds, long enough to download and install Zone Alarm. After that was done, I needed to restart, and at that point, well, my password wouldn't work anymore.

That Windows install is a fresh one, really, since I only just got my laptop back from repair not long ago, and they nuked my HD. So what I want to know is, what the fuck do I do now? Any way to reset the password, or set a new one?

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I do have access to the local admin account on my laptop through the recovery console. Thing is, there doesn't seem to be any command to change passwords.
Ok, fixed that one myself. I should have figured out that safe mode would give me admin access to the GUI earlier.

How ya doing, buddy?