Forgot Win2k password

[AC2EV]

Yes, Hiren's has quite a bit of pirated software on it. I would stay away from it. I tend use the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD). It has a copy of NTPASSWD built in. I've found that's it's better to set a blank password with these utilities rather then set a different password. I've had that backfire on me. Typically I set a blank password then, boot, login and change the password from within Windows.

One of item to note on the UBCD is PLOP under bootmanagers. It does a great job on old PCs that can't boot from USB. If you've got a machine without a CD you can get Plop from the developer's website http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html and put it on a floppy.

[N4BBQ]

Glad ya got it sorted Dave.

For others - try this small ISO image. Burn to a CD, boot the 'target' PC with it and voila - administrator's password is set to <blank>.

I've used this on literally hundreds of PCs as part of my work - it's fast, reliable and works.

No - it won't 'crack' the pword. It blanks it out so there isn't one. No way to hide that the box has been 'modified'. But sure does alllow you to get logged in! Better yet, from there you can re-create a pword you won't forget.

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

Yes and AMEN. Anybody who's anybody has this disc in their tool box. You beat me to the post.

[W6TMI]

Google "ntoffline" it's basically a linux boot CD with a menu-ized password remover.

Might be the same thing ka70 linked, regrdles I've used it for years.

[KF5CGM]

Ok, here is why I don't use passwords on most of my Windows computers.
I need about 30 sec. to remove a password from any given windows computer.
If you have a BIOS password on it, give it 5 to 15 more min. to reset this password as well, depending on how fast my internet is, to look for the master password, or to open the computer itself.

These kind of passwords make only sense, to keep someone from entering your computer while you are in the rest room. It doesn't protect anything on the harddrive.

If you need your files protected, use truecrpyt for the whole harddrive, and make sure that you leave the password backup disk somewhere safe. Because you can't hack into a truecrypt encrypted hardrive. If you lose the password there, you have no chance to get the files back.

I hope this little overlook helped.

[AF6RR]

Another good distro is Backtrack. It's a rework/update of the old Knoppix-STD distro.
http://www.backtrack-linux.org