To MURACU... the problem was w/ auto logon and manual logon ... basically the new password simply wasn't being accepted
I have used the "Linux floppy ".... in don't know the link or the name of the project but it's THE one... THE one that is supposed to reset your password to whatever you specify... actually that was the first thing that I tried and the process was completed fine... BUT the next reboot refused to auto logon and manual logon again... W/ THE SAME AMOUNT OF ASTERIXS like the password that it was changed to... so even that the process seemed to complete successfully, in reality it didn't do anything. I think that it was because the encryption was turned on and the Linux disk somehow mangled the data.
nihil ... I did try the tool you suggested but it could only find partial keys and SID's. On top of that when I added the disk to a new system the windows could only see mangled user (yes it was "Administrator" sorry for the confusion... just trying to abrv.) and SID of as the owner of the files on that disk... so that went to hell as well.
So basically it really comes down to why the system wasn't loggin' on after the change of the pwd.
This is a big lesson for me on the proper recovery technique. I just kept going by the instinct and by the time I realized that there was encryption in play it was too late. Thank you for all your observations guys. I wasn’t trying to “make you do it for me”. I am still looking into it and have the messed-up disk in original form. I would try to post the files but they cannot be lifted of the disk AT ALL, not even from Linux or NetBSD.
I think that the first important lesson is. Don’t rush and try to inject hashes into Windows registry w/ other OS’s before you do your research.
Keep the conversation going. There’s still the original problem of “non-logon”.
