Password (W2K)

[Kapma]

My friend forgot her password to get onto her account, does anybody know how she can get it back or change it?

[amaru96]

You need to log in using another account which has admin rights. You can then change her password.

If there isn't another login account there's software which will allow you to boot from a CD and manipulate the SAM database to change any account/password - but it can be a little messy.

[Kapma]

There isn't another account, so we can't do it that way, unfortunately.
Ok, thankyou, do you know what the software is called please?

[josefz]

"There isn't another account": disagree. In Windows 2000, there is a built-in account for administering the computer, named Administrator.

<font color=blue>To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.</font color=blue> (Plutarch)

[amaru96]

If you don't know the local admin account or that is the account your friend was using then you can try the password reset program.

I have uploaded it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZDQSFWAN
Use Nero to burn the image file and boot from the CD.

Here are some instructions on using it: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

The above app is fairly safe to use (I have used it a number of times) but it could possibly make the system unuseable.

Try this site first: http://www.loginrecovery.com/
If the password is not overly complex it should find it.

Let us know how you go.

[Kapma]

Oh right, I didn't know that as I have Windows XP. We tried getting onto the Administrator account but we couldn't get on because we didn't know the password..?

[Kapma]

Ok, I've just tried downloading the file from this site: http://www.loginrecovery.com/, but my floppy drive thing doesn't seem to be working...

[josefz]

Administrator's password may be empty by default.

<font color=blue>To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.</font color=blue> (Plutarch)

[Kapma]

Yeah, we tried not entering a password too, but with no luck.

[amaru96]

You can create the floppy on any PC. Use another PC with a working floppy drive to create the boot disk. You can then then insert it into the PC you want to recover the password from.

Once you've done that, go back to the PC you created the boot disk from and upload the file to the site for decoding.

[Kapma]

Hmm, I'm not sure who's computer I'm going to use to create the boot disk as there's only one computer in my house.

[amaru96]

Otherwise you could follow the instructions to create & use a bootable CD.

http://www.loginrecovery.com/instructions.html#cd

[Kapma]

Okay, I'll try doing it on a CD, I'm not going to see my friend till later, so I'll tell you how it goes then.

[Kapma]

Yess, it worked! Thanks very much to everyone who helped me, me and my friend really appreciate it.

[amaru96]

No problem, glad to help.