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recover windows xp password

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:51 pm
by yacahuma
a friend lost his windows xp password and now he cannot login. Any ideas how to log in again?


Thank you

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:15 pm
by omniuni
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html

It may take up to 3 minutes to recover all your user accounts.

Good Luck!

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:18 pm
by Chris Corbyn
If you have physical access to the machine, surely you can boot into some sort of single user mode and reset the admin password? Even if that means booting off of the recovery CD.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 5:23 pm
by omniuni
Also, you can try this way, which was highlighted by Roger Halbheer, Chief Security Advisor of Microsoft EMEA.

http://www.offensive-security.com/movie ... ahack.html

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:22 pm
by omniuni
Chris, Windows Vista does not have a single user mode of any sort. It does have a safe mode, but that requires the Admin password (finally). Also, the recovery CD is not of much use. If it's a manufacturers CD, it will restore by imaging, erasing data, and if it is a Vista install CD, you can do a few things, most of which are of no help here. http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/window ... e1033.mspx

Ah well..... I shall stick to Linux.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:48 pm
by Benjamin
Press F8 while it's booting up to get into safe mode. You'll see the admin account. Click it.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:12 pm
by omniuni
Astions, that would work in XP, or if Vista did not have a password. Otherwise, it will prompt for a password before letting you in.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:23 pm
by Benjamin
Yeah, he was asking about xp.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:29 pm
by omniuni
Astions,

I am an idiot with a bad memory. You're quite right, that will work splendidly.

:D

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:50 pm
by yacahuma
going to admin on f8 does not work, since he does not have the password. I found a site that provided a little hack but, it mess the computer. Basically yo are asked to Repair the partition, when it reboots(do not click on load from cd), wait until it says installing driver, then click shift -f10 and you get a command prompt, from there you have to type something(sorry I dont have the link with me) and you get the user control panel. There you change the password. It all worked except, that know when the machine boots it asked to be register with microsoft, but for some reason, the machine cannot connect to microsoft. So I guess he will have to do, what he did not want to do at the beginning(take out laptop drive and using USB , backup data, then , reinstall).

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:13 am
by yacahuma
I did not recover the password. I changed it.

Re: recover windows xp password

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:21 am
by Hadi
I hope that you will find this useful:
http://www.wikihow.com/Retrieve-a-Lost- ... P-Password