Change Your Forgotten Windows Password with the Linux System Rescue CD: Download the System Rescue CD from sysresccd.org
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page Now that you have your boot CD, you’ll want to boot from it, which will take you to this very informative prompt, with some basic instructions on how to use the CD. The first thing we’ll want to do is mount the hard drive, using this command. (Note that you might not need to use the –o force argument, it’s only really for when the system didn’t shut down correctly) block quote ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows –o force block quote end You can use the df –m command to verify that the drive has been mounted and that it’s the right drive. Note that it’s mounted on /mnt/windows at this point. Now you’ll want to change directory into the Windows/System32/config directory inside of your windows installation. For mine, the full path was something like this, but it might be different on yours: block quote cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config block quote end Once you are in that directory, you should see that there is a SAM file, which is where we’ll want to change the passwords. image To change the password we’ll use the chntpw command, and it’s most useful to use the –l argument first to list out all the usernames in the file. block quote chntpw –l SAM block quote end Now you can add the –u argument with your username, which will end up being something like this command, except you’ll want to replace geek with your username: block quote chntpw –u geek SAM block quote end This will present you with a wizard type screen: I’m going to assume that you want to set a new password, so just type “2″ at the prompt, add in your password, and remember to use the “y” key when prompted to save. At this point your password has been changed, so you can issue the reboot command to restart the computer (should take the disc out of the drive) And now you should be able to login with the new password: Regards: Srikanth To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
