Windows 98 Password Lost

[Joe89]

Friend of a friend's husband passed away and took the password to their computer with him..

Its running Windows 98, is there any way to figure out / bypass the password?

Can I even reformat ?

I would like to be able to just figure out the password though because I'm sure there are some files on there that she still wants. Thanks, any help appreciated

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

http://www.knoppix.org/

Try that. It is amazing for data recovery if you can't get into windows....

Oh and DO NOT REFORMAT that will get rid of everything.

That knoppix is teh quickest thing I can think of offhand....it allows you to logon through a LINUX interface off a cd....

just dl it and burn it with nero...

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: Joe89
Friend of a friend's husband passed away and took the password to their computer with him..

Its running Windows 98, is there any way to figure out / bypass the password?

Can I even reformat ?

I would like to be able to just figure out the password though because I'm sure there are some files on there that she still wants. Thanks, any help appreciated

Describe the password prompt. Is it the windows network password? If so, click "cancel" and proceed normally. You don't need it to access anything but networking with other computers as that username.

If it is a BIOS password, then there are manufacturer backdoor passwords, as well as clearing the CMOS.
If it is a screensaver password, then I have no idea how to recover the files running from that Operating system. You can get the files by installing the drive as a second drive in another computer.

 

[sundart]

In motherboard having hardware password jumper for that you have to contact PC technician. it very simple process

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: skyking

Originally posted by: Joe89
Friend of a friend's husband passed away and took the password to their computer with him..

Its running Windows 98, is there any way to figure out / bypass the password?

Can I even reformat ?

I would like to be able to just figure out the password though because I'm sure there are some files on there that she still wants. Thanks, any help appreciated

Describe the password prompt. Is it the windows network password? If so, click "cancel" and proceed normally. You don't need it to access anything but networking with other computers as that username.

If it is a BIOS password, then there are manufacturer backdoor passwords, as well as clearing the CMOS.
If it is a screensaver password, then I have no idea how to recover the files running from that Operating system. You can get the files by installing the drive as a second drive in another computer.

If it's a screensaver password, simply reboot it. It'll complain and run scansdisk, but then you can just hit ESC at the Windows 98 login, disable the screen saver from the display properties box, and get the files like that.

 

[Ichinisan]

You could just simply place the drive in another computer as a slave and copy the files from it.

 

[redbeard1]

A windows 98 password is stored in a .pwl file in the Windows directory. You could boot the system, go into safe mode and delete any pwl file you find. Then reboot and it will ask you to create a new one.