Coworkers daughter can't get into her Vista OS anymore

[udonoogen]

Apparently her password doesn't work anymore. I don't know the circumstances around it and it seems pretty bizarre. Can files be removed from the hard drive if hooked up as a slave to another computer? Or is there a way I can get into the system short of using a password hacking tool like ophcrack (http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/)?

thanks!

 

[Swampster]

By using F8 while the computer starts to boot, you will be presented with a DOS-type menu that lists all the available boot options. Use your arrow key to go up to Safe Mode and hit Enter twice.

When you get to the Welcome screen, it should present you with the user-name AND Administrator. On most computers, the Administrator account is not password protected, because it is not normaly available to the user.

Once there, you can go into Control Panel / User Accounts, and select the user and change or delete their password.

To answer your question more directly, yes, you can temporary the drive into another computer to retrieve files, but with the above it shouldn't be necessary.

 

[udonoogen]

oooh excellent. thank you much, i really appreciate it. i will suggest this to her or try it if she brings the laptop in.

 

[udonoogen]

We tried this and it doesn't appear to work with Vista. I think I tried this with XP back in the day and it worked. Any other ideas?

 

[Jeff7181]

I haven't tried it with Vista, but you should be able to attach the hard drive to another PC and take ownership of the root of the drive (NTFS permissions)... as long as it's not encrypted.

 

[Swampster]

Yes, Jeff's suggestion is an excellent one, but there is one more thing you might try first.

Boot from the DVD (I didn't realize you had Vista), and tell it to Repair the system and when it is all done you can usually also create a new user as part of the process. This new user should be created as an administrator, then it will be able to go in and change the password on the original user.

Lacking that, you can Google for bootable software that will allow you to remove or change user passwords. BUT . . . these tend to be a little geeky because of the language they are written, and this can be a little overwhelming for a person who has never worked in a pure DOS type environment.

 

[Bateluer]

I was going to suggest Ophcrack to crack the password, but it doesn't seem like it'd work too well. It'd crack the password, but it'd take years to actually do it.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I was going to suggest Ophcrack to crack the password, but it doesn't seem like it'd work too well. It'd crack the password, but it'd take years to actually do it.

There is a linux boot cd out there that simply lets your overwrite the password, rather than crack it. IT works wonders. Have the cd at work and dont recall the name of it, but it does exist.

 

[tzdk]

Ultimatebootcd http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has a tool Offline NT Password & Registry Editor http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html which can help. Can also download bootcd from that site. I mention Ultimatebootcd so you are not scared this is best to stay away from bordering on something less than legal perhaps. Not difficult at all, and could be only, definitely least time consuming, solution, but be sure to read "Walkthrough".

Does the same as commercial product like http://www.password-changer.com/ just without the fancy menus.