[styx]

Hi,

A friend of mine has a laptop, which runs Windows Vista.
She forgot her logon password, and since there is no other user (and the Administrator account has no password), there is no way we can possibly login.

I've searched the internet, and the solution would be using a password reset disk, but here's the catchy part: The disk should be created before you forget your password. Hehe when I explained this to her, she just couldn't get programmers... "Why would they program such a stupid function?" I tried to explain her it was all about security, and how your computer would be insecure if you could change the password without losing data, just like in windows XP.

Getting slightly offtopic: She has a lot of data which means very much to her... So I hope there is a way to recover her data.

Now actually, I've already come up with a possible solution, but I would like you guys to say if it will probably work or if it wouldn't...

We could get the harddrive out of the laptop, and put it in a computer which runs Vista, as a second harddrive. Would we be able to copy the data from the second disk to the first? Or will this also be locked or secured, or... I guess you know what I'm asking.

Thanks in advance!

oh and Hi all, btw, I haven't come here for a long long time


edit:typo

[NT50]

Try this at your own risk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

[NT50]

BTW

I have used the one above on everythign but Vista.

I do have the ones at the link bleow but have not tested.

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/downloa ... ype=livecd

One disk is for XP the other is for Vista

[styx]

Thanks I will definitely try those!

[styx]

NT50,

I tried both of your solutions but neither of them seemed to work.
With the NTPassword application, I managed to proceed to step 2, but when it asked me to give it the config directory, nothing seemed to work. I assumed it was windows\system32\config, but it kept asking me to give me the directory, so I guess I was wrong.

I also ran Ophcrack, and although it claims to recover 99.9% of all alphanumeric passwords in seconds, it failed, even after 5 minutes... I ran the vista live CD. (and I'm positive that it's an alphanumeric password)

Please help me out, I don't seem to find any documentation or forums on the Ophcrack website

Thanks!

[mnemonicj]

You should be able to take the hard drive from the laptop, like you said, and put it in another PC to be able to get to the files. There will be some directories that you will be unable to access, but you have to go into the security properties of those folders and give your username ownership of the folders and the files in them, that way you can change the security properties to give yourself administrative access to those folders and files.

I am not sure if it is possible to do this in Home versions of Microsoft OSes, but I know XP Pro lets you do it and Vista Ultimate may let you do it too.

[NT50]

From the looks of it mnemonicj is correct. It seems your best bet is to do as he stated. and then wipe out you system and start over. Be sure next time to not forget password.

[NT50]

MAYBE try the article below.....

Warning... I have not proved this article neither....

Computer TnT

[styx]

I've come up with another possible solution! I'm going to use an Ubuntu LiveCD to try and copy data to an external USB Harddisk.

Hopefully this will work!

[imnuts]

If Ubuntu doesn't work, you can use a Slax live cd. The only reason it may not work properly is I'm not sure if it has NTFS read support built in or not. I do know that Slax does however.