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Need help recovering login password for win2k!

N

ncc

Junior Member
Basically, my boss forgot the password and he can't log on. He has all his data on it, and would like to salvage it. Before, the system was set so that the password prompt was bypassed. However, the computer apparently crashed overnight or something, and now it asks for the password. The system is on a dual boot: win2k and win98.

I read the previous posts, and about deleting the SAM file. I haven't tried this yet. I was just wondering if the solution is as simple as that, and whether other people have done this and succeeded at it. Please help me out guys, the data is very important. Thanks.

NCC
 

Did you lose the 'ADMINISTRATOR' password too?! If not you can logon as 'admin' and gain access to everything you need.


If you don't have admin access I guess you could create a DOS boot disk (i.e. 'format a: /s') - you'll also need NTFS Pro from Wininternals (www.wininternals.com), if you're using NTFS - otherwise you'll only need the DOS bootdisk, then...

1) Boot from the floppy - you may need to enable booting from floppy in the BIOS.
2) Go to 'C:\WINNT\System32\config' and rename the SAM file to SAM.old
3) Restart your computer.

You should now have a blank password.

 
Thanks for the help Escalade. Unless my boss remembers the password, I think I'll have to try this out. However, I was still wondering if you or any other person have actually tried this, because most of the people involved in similar situations in previous posts said they were to scared to actually do it. I'm pretty scared as well, as I don't want to mess up. But thanks again for the timely reply. And yeah, he doesn't know the administrator password also.
ncc
 

I've never done it, but as I see it you have nothing to lose. While searching I also found this on DejaNews Password recovery in NT

I don't think there will be any problem with deleting the SAM file, if things should go wrong you can always boot with the 4 setup disks (or from the CD) and do a restore - this should also wipe out the password file.

 
Hehe, it's no problem, I do it all the time on the job! It just whacks the Security and Account Manager database. No big.
Just log in as the local admin with no password after that.
 
Ripped from orielly.com:

Recover from a forgotten Administrator password. Forgetting the Administrator password can be either a nuisance or a complete disaster. Before you agonize over the lost password, however, take a few seconds to check for a simple mistake. Your password is case sensitive, so try re-entering it using the opposite case.

If that doesn't work, and you can boot the system to get read/write access to the system folder (the one containing Windows 2000), you can delete the file
\%systemroot%\System32\Config\SAM, which contains the accounts. Reboot and you'll now have a new Administrator account with a blank password. You'll lose all accounts other than the Administrator account, but at least you'll be able to boot the system and access your applications and data without having to reinstall Windows 2000.

If neither of these approaches works, check out Winternals.com Both its ERD Commander Professional and NTRecover with the NT Locksmith add-on provide a means of changing any password, including the Administrator account. In addition, both tools provide the ability to boot a completely dead system and recover data from the system.

Basically what Escalade said... except if that doesn't work, you can check out Winternals.com
 
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