Win XP problem

[jak]

hey
i have an old laptop that i want to re-use and it has windows XP on but the problem is that it has only one account (the administrator) one and it has a password on and yeah u've guessed it i forgot the pass

any thoughts??

[Google]

There are bootable CDs that you can use to reset the password. Plenty are available online.

[ibllise]

assuming u dont want to use external recovery tools

try this

[Neoxter]

http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/

[mr_j]

Originally Posted by jak

hey
i have an old laptop that i want to re-use and it has windows XP on but the problem is that it has only one account (the administrator) one and it has a password on and yeah u've guessed it i forgot the pass

any thoughts??

usualy a computer has 2 accounts, the regular administrator account made to your name, and a hidden administrator account
if it is not the hidden account you are talkign about... try logging onto it, the password is usually either empty of also administrator...

[Tawa]

If you can't reach any of the above, try asking a pro-linux dude to do it for you.

Google chntpw command in Linux.
It is very easy, and can be done in 1 minute.

[Google]

Originally Posted by Tawa

If you can't reach any of the above, try asking a pro-linux dude to do it for you.

Google chntpw command in Linux.
It is very easy, and can be done in 1 minute.

Indeed.

x454447415244@love:/$ chntpw
chntpw version 0.99.5 070923 (decade), (c) Petter N Hagen
chntpw: change password of a user in a NT/2k/XP/2k3/Vista SAM file, or invoke registry editor.
chntpw [OPTIONS] <samfile> [systemfile] [securityfile] [otherreghive] [...]
 -h          This message
 -u <user>   Username to change, Administrator is default
 -l          list all users in SAM file
 -i          Interactive. List users (as -l) then ask for username to change
 -e          Registry editor. Now with full write support!
 -d          Enter buffer debugger instead (hex editor), 
 -t          Trace. Show hexdump of structs/segments. (deprecated debug function)
 -v          Be a little more verbose (for debuging)
 -L          Write names of changed files to /tmp/changed
 -N          No allocation mode. Only (old style) same length overwrites possible
See readme file on how to get to the registry files, and what they are.
Source/binary freely distributable under GPL v2 license. See README for details.
NOTE: This program is somewhat hackish! You are on your own!
x454447415244@love:/$

So you only have to do the following:

cp /WINDOWS_LOCATION/system32/config/sam sam
chntpw -i sam
cp sam /WINDOWS_LOCATION/system32/config/sam

Note:
But of course, you have to boot your PC with a Linux live CD (Let's say Ubuntu) and run "sudo apt-get install chntpw" from the terminal to download and install the tool.