Windows 2000 password help

[The_Seeker]

At my school i am in a computer tech. class. We have a computer which someone(a student) put a password on it. The computer is running windows 2000. My teacher ask me to find a way to get into the computer and bypass or erase the password. How would i do this? There are disk which you boot up the computer and it restores the computer to the default accounts does anyone know the link to those so i may use it. thank you in advance.

[nsbuttar]

try out knoppix or NTFSDOS mount your partitions and floppy drive copy the SAM file and use L0phtCrack to get the password

[br_fusion]

SAM is syskey encrpyted on WIN2000/XP so its uncrackable. Your only hope it to use a specfic linux boot disk to reset the password. Or you could purchase Passware which does the same thing.

[haydez]

Check out the boot disk at : http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

... it's fairly self-explanatory upon reading the FAQ there on how it works and proves to be useful. :-)

[Lebb]

What's the server? I might be able to help you.

[mrleachy]

what about the admin acount?
dont tell me the students are allowed to use the computer on the admin account, even if it is for a computer tech class this should be a no-no, if you ned admin functionality which you may considering the nature of the class, you should create another account with admin rights and use that, im assuming you mean a password on the operating system and not the BIOS, some bioses can be reset using a jumper on the mobo, some can be reset simply by taking the top off the case and removing the bios battery, probly about the same size as a quarter coin

if all else fails and you dont have any real important data on the computer, see if you can hook the hard drive up to another system, boot from the other system (that supports NTFS drives), grab your data off the hard drive, then put it back in this other system youre having trouble with and then do a format and clean new install, just remember next time to not give out admin access to anyone unless you abolutely need to, there are LAN cards that you can install into a pc that will restore the contents of system files and stuff like that, i know theyre out there but cant think of them at the moment, check out www.atomicmpc.com.au and you may find them there, thats the mag i read that did a feature on a couple of them a while back, if i can find the article i'll post about them for you if you want

[shadow_dancer]

dont tell me the students are allowed to use the computer on the admin account, even if it is for a computer tech class this should be a no-no, if you ned admin functionality which you may considering the nature of the class,

i agree with mrleachy , u can use admin account and set ur friend's account or do everything you want to do if u already get inside with admin account mate. And i found nice site about win2k or NT ( http://www.sans.org/Win2KWorldTour/faculty.php ).

[XTC46]

ok heres the simplest way around windows security. Start the machiene in safe mode, username administrator, windows has this hidden account wiht no password and full privledges to all other accounts. I am the student network admin at my school so this is how i rid the school of people who create accounts on private machienes in the school.

[Tiger Shark]

XTC46:

If I am understanding you correctly you probably need to get a new network administrator.....

The account "administrator" on a win2k/XP box is the default account created at installation. It is the most powerful account on any win2k/XP box. It cannot be deleted, it cannot be locked out and it cannot be removed from the administative group..... (Yes, yes everyone I know there are tools to do some of these things........ )

The upshot appears to be that your machines were installed without the administrator's password being set and no-one has bothered to go back in and set it. This makes it about the most open box going......<sigh>

Go tell your network administrator that his security sucks, (especially in a school system), and that he needs to go and set the password on all his boxes. When he does that he will be "owned" a little less often. I'm really surprised that someone hasn't applied a password to it and deleted all the other accounts to keep you out yet..... Must be a school full of little angels......