defeating password

[KA9VQF]

Alright, my daughters friend has recently brought her ancient {nearly three year old} HP midi tower computer from her folks house to the place my daughter lives.

I hooked the thing up and got it to boot and was surprised that it had XP for OS. {I’d thought it was older than my own machine but mine is closer to 4 years old now.}

Thing is she has forgotten the password for it or someone has changed it from what she remembers it being. {she hasn’t used the computer for a year or better since she got her laptop}

Is there a way to get around the password thing or not. I mean with out a fresh install of windoze XP.

There is a lot of music trapped in the HD and some video that is irreplaceable.

[WD8OQX]

Assuming this is an admin password, try this (this one assumes the "security hole" hasn't been fixed.)
I forgot my admin password (http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305)

Or try this if you know Linux
resetting password with knoppix (http://rhadimas.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/reset-windows-password-w-knoppix/)

Let me know if it is another password you are referring to as the method is different for each.

BTW: if all you want to do is get the files, you can mount the drive in another computer as slave & pull them off. Or use a linux live distro (boots computer from CD - digipup is a good one for this) & do the same without having to remove the HD. - there are programs that are supposed to reset this as well. Just be sure to scan for viruses/trojans/malware before using.

[KA9VQF]

I think it is just her user password. I’m pretty sure she lacks the ability to set an administrative password.

I bought a Gateway that had belonged to a ham friend who put his call sign in for password so that was not a problem since I knew his call.

Eventually I removed the need to put a password in on that machine at all and everyone here who needed to use the computer was happy.

Her password hint is ‘kids names’ and I have been going through a list of names one at a time trying to get lucky and hit the right one.

She said she had always wanted to name her {should she ever have any} Mikhail for a boy and Jocelyn for girl, neither of these names works by themselves or together nor in any of the combinations that two names can make. She also said she had not used either of the names but instead had used the word ‘samurai.’

When I asked why she had used ‘kids names’ for her onscreen password hint she said she thought it would confuse anyone who was trying to log on to her computer.

Samurai does not work either this is what makes her think someone has changed the word without her knowing. There is a very short list of people who would have known to use samurai to be able to get access to the computer to make that change and all plead innocent.

On the initial boot up at my daughters place, when the password screen came up I didn’t even try to enter one. I was hoping that just hitting the enter button would get me past the screen but it didn’t work out.

It is looking more and more to me like I will have to dismount the disk and put it in my machine burn the stuff they want to keep on a CD {or perhaps several, her machine lacks a DVD drive} and nuke the drive then reinstall everything.

[WD8OQX]

If it WERE a user password there would have to be a admin one too. If you knew the admin you wouldn't need any other.

But since you don't have access at all, it will be the admin that you will need to reset.

I assume that you do NOT know anything about linux, so I'll leave that out. - I'd first try to download a program to reset the password. Even a demo that only gives a partial may trigger her memory. Then, if that doesn't work, try the first link. Other than that you can do as you said & recover the files.

To actually do this (manually) requires quite a bit of knowledge of the inner workings if XP (sams & such) so it is a bit hard just to walk someone through it. That is why I'm not going that route, but if you are so inclined there is a bunch of info on the internet as to how.

[KA9VQF]

Yes I am not a linux dude at all, have enough problems running what is on the machine out of the box. My sister in Wisconsin is a linux guru, she has a shirt that says something like “And on the 11 day he created Linux, all praise to the deity”

I wonder if I could force the machine into starting in safe mode then change the password.

Seems to me that if the power was interrupted during boot up on my older machines that ran the old windoze OS it would come up in safe mode so I could check things out.

If I remember right there was a ‘F’ button you could push during boot to get to start in safe mode too.

Wonder if XP has this or not.

Off to micro$oft.com to look

[WD8OQX]

If you understand ISO files to make bootable CD's & such, here is a link to what you may be looking for. Click on bootdisk & Scroll down the page to downloads & D/L the file for the CD (top one) - (it also has instructions)
LINK (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/)

There is also good info on how this works & will explain why you just can't do what you were thinking, at least not in an "NT" environment which XP is. You could somewhat with 95 & 98 as all you had to do was delete the password file (I think it was PWD - or something like that)

BTW: F8 is what you where thinking of & yes XP will do it. I think ALL M$ will. - & I hope there were NO encrypted files on that computer.If so let me know before you proceed & I'll see what may be done about them.

[KA9VQF]

Just went over and tried to start the thing in safe mode.

Got the screen to come up but it tells me I can’t change the password while in safe mode.

So, I left them a stack of CD’s to put their music on and hope it works out for them.

Being a slow computer in the first place and running in safe mode it took just over an hour to make the first disk of tunes.

I did check the disk in my cars CD player and it will play so I guess once we nuke the drive they can rip them back into the bloody thing.

[WD8OQX]

At the risk of sounding like I don't know this stuff, didn't safe mode ask for a password or did it just let you into the files?

I have my computers set up to auto logon & at the risk of not remembering my own password I'm not going to check it out. (right now anyway) ( getting a little "brain dead" at the moment - been a long day) & don't have time to mess if I forget & I NEED the machines for classes.

If it just let you into the files, it doesn't say much for security, does it!

Either way, glad to see you are able to get to do what you wanted to do, & hope I was at least SOME help.

[KA9VQF]

Many years ago when I had my very first IBM compatible 8088 machine I was real paranoid about someone coming into my house and seeing what was on my machine. After spending a lot of time typing in all the different things I might have used for password and eventually finding the right one I removed the need for a password to use the machine completely.

As time went on and I upgraded to faster bling, bling machines there were occasionally things I didn’t want my kid to see so I would set them up in password protected files.

It’s no fun when you really, really want/need to use your toy and it won’t go because you can’t remember the smeging pass word.

Back to my current problem machine:
No, the password screen did not come up in safe mode. It went right to the desktop screen. {in safe mode of course} I was able to just go to the media player and make the first CD.

I wasn’t sure if the CD/RW would work in safe mode or not and frankly was surprised when it did.

I told them to not shut the machine down until they have all the music and hopefully the video clips on CD’s.

I’m not real sure if they can just burn the files for the video clips to a CD or not and if they do manage to do that if they will open and play afterward.

I sure wish they had a DVD burner on that machine.

I thought about taking the one out of my machine and putting it in but I had enough problems getting it to work in here that I decided not to.

The kid says if we get it going, not in safe mode, she will probably buy a DVD burner drive like I have to put in it.

I’m beginning to wonder if this is why her pal bought the laptop in the first place. Simply because she don’t remember the pass word.

And yes the links you sent were helpful I plan on making a floppy from the second site link you sent and trying it tomorrow.

[WD8OQX]

That's surprising! Unless some security thing is set differently on that machine than I'm accustom to. - I HAVE to check this out when I have time. Good one to ask my instructor about.

[KA9VQF]

It may be just a fortunate, for me, glitch. That is why I told them not to shut the machine down until they have all the music on disks.

[WD8OQX]

Did some googling & found out that there may not be a password on the admin just the user as to why you were able to get in.

I also found this (that I forgot about) may be your "lifesaver"

First try this - See if you can put administrator on there for the logon name, leave the password blank & hit enter. If it has no password, as I think, that should do it. Once you are in just change it in the control panel.

CHANGE/RESET PASSWORD FOR ANY USERNAME

1. Reboot the computer
2. Right after the bios is finished, hit F8 (or F2,10,12)
3. Select ‘Safe mode’ or ‘Safe mode with networking support’
4. Windows will boot up to the logon screen. Click administrator, 9/10 there is no password.
5. Do, Start->Run->type ‘command’
6. At the prompt, type ‘net user’ which will display a list of usernames. Find the one you are looking for, try ‘net user username’ for them all. Type ‘net user /HELP’ for more info.
7. To reset the password type ‘net user username *’ where username is the username you want to reset.
8. For no password, leave blank.
9. Now, reboot and you can login as that user.

[AD4MG]

Quote[/b] (WD8OQX @ Sep. 21 2007,00:37)]Did some googling & found out that there may not be a password on the admin just the user as to why you were able to get in.

I also found this (that I forgot about) may be your "lifesaver"

First try this - See if you can put administrator on there for the logon name, leave the password blank & hit enter. If it has no password, as I think, that should do it. Once you are in just change it in the control panel.

CHANGE/RESET PASSWORD FOR ANY USERNAME

1. Reboot the computer
2. Right after the bios is finished, hit F8 (or F2,10,12)
3. Select ‘Safe mode’ or ‘Safe mode with networking support’
4. Windows will boot up to the logon screen. Click administrator, 9/10 there is no password.
5. Do, Start->Run->type ‘command’
6. At the prompt, type ‘net user’ which will display a list of usernames. Find the one you are looking for, try ‘net user username’ for them all. Type ‘net user /HELP’ for more info.
7. To reset the password type ‘net user username *’ where username is the username you want to reset.
8. For no password, leave blank.
9. Now, reboot and you can login as that user.
Yes, was going to add this. The default password for the administrator account on a fresh install is blank ... and on many machines, it remains that way forever!

Two thirds of the XP boxes I work on here do not have an administrator password. It is the responsibility of the end user to set that password.

Good luck!

[WD8OQX]

That is were the difference lies, I SET the password. I new there HAD to be a security difference - just didn't dawn on me what. As I do this so routinely, I don't think about it.

I MAY use tweekUI & set an auto logon (user) but there is still the password, where inside access isn't a problem or machine is secured. - Helps keep out undesirable access. (as noted) Especially from outside attacks.

[KA9VQF]

OQX,
I printed out your suggestion you sent and went over there to implement it but they didn’t want me to until they have all the disks burned.

It is darned slow process running under safe mode. Not that it was really much faster in regular windoz, the burner was added to the machine after they got it.

Mine had a CD/RW in it when I bought it {I put a liteon DVD burner in it recently} and hers is at least a year newer than mine but hers is a Gateway and mine is HP. Maybe they got a real deal on the machine because it came with only CDROM or something.

My sister, the linux guru, sent down a CD with a self booting distro on it and I have been playing with it on one of my P90 machines.

If I get the hang of it I may start using that for OS on at least that machine. I have pretty much all the HD’s from all the computers I ever owned laying around here and might have some fun looking at the old stuff with the linux.

From what I have managed to learn so far that is something you can do with linux. Could be fun and interesting.

[KD8EMR]

Two quick notes....

Since the PC didn't take a password in safe mode have you tried just leaving the password blank and logging in?

Most passwords are case sensitive. So you could have a few more combinations there. i.e.

Paul
paul
PAUL
pAUL

would be the most common iterations of Paul.

[K3WRV]

Ask your sister for a little linux program called "crack". It decrypts passwords fairly easily. I DONT THINK Win$ is case sensitive, but I don't use Bill's sutff much.
Most Linux software is free and under GPL, which means free as in beer and free as in speech, and they give you the source code too, if you really want it. But Linux doesn't care about Windows passwords. You just moount the drive and cd to it and you're in like Flint. But that may be more than you want to learn right now, but your sister can do it in 30 sec (or less).
ou can download crack from Sourceforge.net (I Think) or maybe it's freshmeat.
[EDIT] I assume we're talking abnout a user password, not a BIOS password. If you know DOS, Linux won't be hard to learn, there are just a few differences in syntax, and everything is just a file (Including your Hard drive! There is no C:\ drive in linux, only hda1. but only if you're talkind directly to the device. And there's a pretty good Win2Lin Howto out there on the web, but when you're under pressure is NOT a good time to try to get things accomplished.

[KA9VQF]

They sat up until early this morning burning disks and then hit it again before they left for work. When I got over there her pal was crashed on the couch and the kid was still burning as fast as the machine would let her.

She has to work again tomorrow but not till 1:00 pm and she says they only have a dozen or so to go.

I hope she gets enough sleep so she doesn’t kill any customers {again}

It will be interesting if I do manage to get it going and remove the blasted password. All this work will have been for nothing.

Well I guess at least they will have all their music backed up again. Guess that will be a plus.

Her pal didn’t do any online banking or write any epic novels or anything with the machine just put a lot of music and video stuff on it, most of the video was just stuff from the net and probably could be down loaded again but some of it was recorded on a friends digital camcorder and is irreplaceable.

And yes it would be very convenient if my sister would make a trip down here and fix the damn thing for us. She is really frustrated trying to do what she can by remote control with not so good remote manipulators {me}

She did say something about sending me a copy of PC anywhere but I didn’t see how that would help if the machine didn’t boot past the password screen.

The girls don’t have even dialup over there now they rely on their cell phones. The plan is to get the cell phone modem once I get the machine going. Not sure what that will cost them but they are confident that it will be less than even what I am paying for dialup here.

I keep thinking about getting the DSL hookup through the phone company here but just can’t justify the price per month. It would probably really cost less than what I pay some months when my wife decides to talk to her sister in Tennessee for several hours several times in a week.

The plan I have now includes so many minutes of long distance but it really don’t take long to run them out when you sit there staring at the TV and don’t say anything for several minutes at a time and her sister is doing the same thing.

It’s alright when Tennessee calls here, she has unlimited minutes on her cell phone and no long distance charges after like 5:00 pm local time to her so I don’t care about it, they have ‘talked’ until the batteries go dead on the cell before, no small feat, and then do it again soon as the batteries are up again.

[WD8OQX]

If (when) you get into the computer, don't sweat the work as backups ALWAYS need to be done. Just think of the time that could be saved right now if one had been done already.

From personal experience, I can safe say...backup, backup, backup...

[KA9VQF]

I agree. I use my computer for most of my online bill paying and to manipulate my checking. I’ve been using quicken for the last several years.

I used to backup with 144 disks then CD/RW and now have it on DVD/RW.

One day I plan to convert all the old media to DVD but just haven’t managed to generate the interest.

When I put the old 144 disks into this machine it wants to format them and a popup box tells me I will lose all data on the disk, so I just use them in the old computer and they work fine.

From what I understand if I get to where I know what I’m doing with the linux I will be able to run it on this machine and access the old disks fine.

I do have a tape backup drive and the novel software to run it but never liked the thing nor the software that you use it with. It is mounted in the PIII running with windoz 98.

[KA9VQF]

And now the rest of the story,…

I finally managed to get the computer to boot without the annoying password screen thanks to your help.

Now she has decided to move out of my daughters place and naturally take the computer with her.

I’m not really sure if I am enraged or not.

I guess its not really that big of a problem but I am irked if not enraged. I’m willing to take bets her boyfriend will boot her out again in a month or so. I’ve told the kid not to let her back in, no matter what.

[VE3SRE]

Somehow I missed this thread. I have a password crack floppy disk that I recall using successfully on Windows 2000...and would probably work on WinXP.

IIRC, it booted into a mini-Linux kernel, and basically what you did was "blank" the admin password. Only took a few minutes and worked like a charm. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I'll have to poke through my stuff at work and see what it was called.

73

[WD8OQX]

Quote[/b] (KA9VQF @ Sep. 23 2007,22:46)]And now the rest of the story,…

I finally managed to get the computer to boot without the annoying password screen thanks to your help.

Now she has decided to move out of my daughters place and naturally take the computer with her.

I’m not really sure if I am enraged or not.

I guess its not really that big of a problem but I am irked if not enraged. I’m willing to take bets her boyfriend will boot her out again in a month or so. I’ve told the kid not to let her back in, no matter what.
I can see why you would be a little ticked. Do all that work to get it usable & neither you or your daughter get to use it - but there again it IS hers.

You can rest assured in the knowledge gained. Feel good about a job well done, you earned it. & did something nice for your daughter in helping her friends.

[KC2HJN]

Well, I guess it's a little late but I'll post this for future reference.

XP stores it's passwords encrypted in windows/system32/config/SAM (SAM is the name of the file).

It cannot be accessed directly while xp is running so you must use a boot disk and make a copy of this file to another computer. Then you can use one of the many password recovery tools available on the internet.

I used this in the past and it worked perfectly:

http://www.elcomsoft.com/pspr.html?r1=Openwall

You just point it to the copy of the file you made and presto.
It also was able to show some other stuff like serial numbers and activation codes... When I used it there was a shareware version and it looks like there still is one available.

EDIT:
If I remember correctly you should also grab the SYSTEM file from the same location.

[VE3SRE]

Okay, I remembered the password crack tool I used to use.

Here's the link:

offline NT password recovery (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/)

I last used this some years ago on Windows 2000, but I see it works on WinXP and WinVista too.

73