Indeed. I found the syskey option after my last post, but by that point I'd already tried the operation with Hirens Boot CD. It did not go well. To be fair to Hirens, it warned that the computer may end up in an endless boot loop, and that's exactly what happened. I'm going to check if the system has a registry backup from before the scam, but I'm not optimistic. I tried using a Windows 7 disc to do a system restore, which I assume would have put the system back to a point before the syskey was set up, but every time I tried the restore it ended up giving me some sort of error.

Oh well. Time to grab the data and reformat!