Author Topic: XP Password work around? (Read 23,106 times)

Mizraim · « **on:** March 07, 2009, 01:47 AM »

My sister-in-law has extremely long passwords, which is a good thing, however after a recent password change to log in to XP, she forgot her password and now wants to know if there is any known method, besides formatting, to either recover her password or get past it and enter a new password? I've scratched my head about this for a while, but am unable to come up with anything. Any ideas? $:-\$

PhilB66 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:20 AM »

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor @ http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Shades · « **Reply #2 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:29 AM »

You have boot CD's that help you erase the admin password and change it to something you like. I believe that software came also on floppy as well.

Besides that, when that system starts and it shows all available user accounts (fast login screen) hit CTRL+ALT+DEL a few times for showing the administrator account. Works like a charm. If she knows that password she can log in and change the password for her normal account. Saves a reformat. And if she doesn't, use the trick with the floppy or CD.

EDIT: Darn, PhilB beat me to it

f0dder · « **Reply #3 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:01 PM »

Just remember that if you've used NTFS encrypted files, iirc you lose access to those by resetting the password with one of the offline tools.

Mizraim · « **Reply #4 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:25 PM »

Awesome! I'll have to try the above mentioned things and let you know my results. Thank you all for the fast reply!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #5 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:38 PM »

fOdder is correct ... if when the user was setup the 'privacy' option was ticked then all the files will be encrypted and resetting the password will render them all inaccessible.

Mizraim · « **Reply #6 on:** March 07, 2009, 03:14 PM »

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case because I formatted her computer before and never do that for someone who doesn't specifically request it. So we're probably off the hook.

I appreciate the warning though. If push comes to shove, she has a TB external drive and we can back up her importants before facing yet another format.

gexecuter · « **Reply #7 on:** March 08, 2009, 01:43 AM »

How about Ophcrack? it can crack your windows XP password and display it. It worked pretty well for me.

CleverCat · « **Reply #8 on:** March 08, 2009, 07:18 AM »

~~Can't you use the Auto Logon in Tweak UI~~?

Forgot you need your password first!

Mizraim · « **Reply #9 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:05 PM »

Quote from: gexecuter on March 08, 2009, 01:43 AM

How about Ophcrack? it can crack your windows XP password and display it. It worked pretty well for me.

Looks like Ophcrack requires you to be able to get into your machine, which would be nice if she could remember her password.

f0dder · « **Reply #10 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:15 PM »

Quote from: Mizraim on March 08, 2009, 02:05 PM

Quote from: gexecuter on March 08, 2009, 01:43 AM
How about Ophcrack? it can crack your windows XP password and display it. It worked pretty well for me.
Looks like Ophcrack requires you to be able to get into your machine, which would be nice if she could remember her password.

You should be able to use BartPE or the like to get access to the necessary password files, then take them to another machine and use a cracker. Ophcrack mentions having a liveCD, so possibly it's automated.

PhilB66 · « **Reply #11 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:19 PM »

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Chntpw_for_Dos

Mizraim · « **Reply #12 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:24 PM »

Quote from: PhilB66 on March 08, 2009, 02:19 PM

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Chntpw_for_Dos

Wow, I've never seen this one before!

Quote from: f0dder on March 08, 2009, 02:15 PM

Quote from: Mizraim on March 08, 2009, 02:05 PM
Quote from: gexecuter on March 08, 2009, 01:43 AM
How about Ophcrack? it can crack your windows XP password and display it. It worked pretty well for me.
Looks like Ophcrack requires you to be able to get into your machine, which would be nice if she could remember her password.
You should be able to use BartPE or the like to get access to the necessary password files, then take them to another machine and use a cracker. Ophcrack mentions having a liveCD, so possibly it's automated.

That's a good idea. I'm going to get her laptop today around 7pm, so now I have plenty of options to try. I appreciate all the effort put into this.

gexecuter · « **Reply #13 on:** March 08, 2009, 05:20 PM »

Quote from: Mizraim on March 08, 2009, 02:05 PM

Quote from: gexecuter on March 08, 2009, 01:43 AM
How about Ophcrack? it can crack your windows XP password and display it. It worked pretty well for me.
Looks like Ophcrack requires you to be able to get into your machine, which would be nice if she could remember her password.

It also has an bootable ISO available for download which you can burn into a CD and boot it before Windows starts, i forgot to mention it before.

Coeluh · « **Reply #14 on:** March 08, 2009, 05:54 PM »

hirens boot cd does the job, (i heard)

Mizraim · « **Reply #15 on:** March 09, 2009, 03:52 AM »

Quote from: PhilB66 on March 08, 2009, 02:19 PM

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Chntpw_for_Dos

HAHA! It was a little confusing, actually it was very confusing... a lot of tries, but we finally deleted the password and she logged directly into her laptop without password prompt.

Set password to 'test' and rebooted.

Logged in successfully.

Thank you all for the help!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #16 on:** March 09, 2009, 09:41 AM »

Quote from: Coeluh on March 08, 2009, 05:54 PM

hirens boot cd does the job, (i heard)

Only seems to have a reset password tool.

Kunkzi · « **Reply #17 on:** August 20, 2016, 03:11 AM »

Any alternative to Ophcrack? it says no table found. P.S found out a great one to reset windows 10 password by creating a password reset disk.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #18 on:** August 22, 2016, 11:56 AM »

The Trinity Rescue Kit has one that should work.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** August 22, 2016, 02:55 PM »

MS has a procedure to make a password recovery diskette. I don't remember if it was updated to make a recovery USB.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/305478

Also it does not specify if using it orphans your encrypted data.

Edit: For future reference of course. Once you are locked out it's too late for this technique. You need to use one of the bootable password erasers in that case as others have posted.

Jamlery · « **Reply #20 on:** August 14, 2017, 07:28 AM »

Quote from: Kunkzi on August 20, 2016, 03:11 AM

Any alternative to Ophcrack? it says no table found. P.S found out a great one to reset windows 10 password by creating a password reset disk.

My friend use CMD to reser the local account for password reset , it is free ,

4wd · « **Reply #21 on:** August 15, 2017, 01:01 AM »

There's also Kon-boot, the free version is OK for XP x86, it'll let you bypass the login.