Password Problems

[steve.milner]

I'm after a little help.

I'm visting my partner's mum, a 4 hour drive away from home for the weekend.

She is learning computers and is at the very basic steps.

I got her her computer, which is runnng XP and I left it configured so that there was no password required to log in.

At some point a password has been put onto this system and now there is no way to log in. I have physical access to the machine & I have my laptop running FC2 with me, but nothing like a knoppix CD with me.

I'm going to obtain a USB hard drive caddy so that I can gain access to the hard drive with a view to 'messing' - otherwise I am left taking it back home with me fixing & returning several weeks later.

I only have internet access via GPRS mobile phone.

Is there a passsword file I can delete which will sort this out?

Any suggestions will be greatfully received.

Steve

[nihil]

I am sure that you have tried but:

1. Try Blank
2. New users get confused, try the account name as the password..........I've seen that happen before

Actually Steve, it would have been better if you had posted this in Addicts..........I will PM you

Cheers

[Tiger Shark]

Delete the SAM... See here ..... But back it up first.... theres a good chap....

[MrLinus]

Floppy Sized Boot Disk Password Adjuster. Have you tried putting this on to the USB and booting with the USB? A few other options are here

[thehorse13]

Yes, the password cracking floppy that MsMitts linked to is used daily by our desktop support folks. You'll need WinRawWrite to burn the image to floppy. Boot off this floppy (to a stripped Linux OS), set the Admin password to * and be SURE to write the hives back when it askes you to. Basically answer the default to all questions except the one that asks about writing the hives back over. It defaults to "N" but you have to write em back or else the password doesn't get changed (duh). After you reboot, the admin password will be blank. What does this mean? PWN3D. LOL. Good luck.

[snoweagle]

if it can access web
if it has some Vulnerability
try remote create a administrator account

[jinxy]

I'm going to obtain a USB hard drive caddy so that I can gain access to the hard drive with a view to 'messing' - otherwise I am left taking it back home with me fixing & returning several weeks later.

Did you install xp for her or was it pre-insalled when you aquired the pc??

I would hazard a guess that there is not a administrators password set. So you maybe able to access the pc via safe mode Administrators account.

[Irongeek]

Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
Delete the SAM... See here ..... But back it up first.... theres a good chap....

The deleting the SAM trick worked for Windows 2000, but security accounts manager wont work if you delete the SAM in XP, then you can’t logon at all (at least when I tested it about 2 years ago).

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
Delete the SAM... See here ..... But back it up first.... theres a good chap....

This was just the kind of advice I was looking for....

But, it turns out my FC2 kernel didn't have ntfs compiled in & I didn't have the funds to spend hours browsing the net at mobile phone GPRS rates sorting out what I needed.

Originally posted here by MsMittens
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html"]Floppy Sized Boot Disk Password Adjuster[/url]. Have you tried putting this on to the USB and booting with the USB? A few other options are here

That absolutely rocks. I didn't have a usb with me but my laptop has a cd wwriter so I got the cd image & bingo.

It does exctly what it says on the tin.

Originally posted here by Irongeek


The deleting the SAM trick worked for Windows 2000, but security accounts manager wont work if you delete the SAM in XP, then you can’t logon at all (at least when I tested it about 2 years ago).

Ahhh, so it wouldn't have worked after all.

Many, many thanks to all, not least for helping me look like a hacking ninja in front of my partner's mum.

Steve

Oh and BTW - I tried all the usual passwords that she might have used but to no avail.

I've no idea what happened to the admin account. The PW I would have used seemed not to work, but then again I might have used a different one & forgotten it <sigh>

[Riot]

did you try starting up the computer in safe mode and loging on in the admin account it has no password once your on all you need to do is change her password.

Irongeek if you delet the sams file i dont think it dose any thing because their is a back up sams file for recovery locates in C:\WINDOWS\REPAIR\SAM put that into the address bar at the my computer prompt and it will ask you how to open it. just so if any one wants to know this sam file is not protected like the other one this one you can open and copy it for decrepting if you want.