Administrator Password forgotten

[fline]

I have forgotten the administrator password on two of my workstations. This is the only login name to that workstation. Is there any way to bypass this to logon to the system. I use Windows 2000 on one and XP on another. Will I have to re-install the OS again by formatting the HDD. There is a lot of data

 

[Deodar]

Hey Fline,how are ya.Are you comfortable going "under the hood" for some
fine tuning? If the battery on the edge of the motherboard is removed for
10 miniuts& then replaced the BIOS forgets passwords (and the date/time)-
first try entering the BIOS setup on bootup where you get the option to do
it(change passwords)but I'm not sure that works for Admin,only a/c holders.
Reinstallation will definitely work,if you can save all the data you need ,as a
format wipes everything clean.Save all the modemdrivers to floppies too,
and the modems &settings.Apart from that it's a breeze.Changing Admin
passwords would be a security loophole don't you think?There's no way apart
from the above.

 

[Deodar]

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305
learn something every day-an unusual loophole.

 

[physician]

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305
learn something every day-an unusual loophole.

Both suggestions are very good. I do want to let you know that the ERD Commander tool is excellent and a worthwhile investment. I have had a chance to play with it and it runs like one of those Live CD apps (Knoppix like). It boots up from the CD and lets you look at all your windows files. You can remove trojans and other malware without running windows - you just view your files on the hard drive and remove the bad ones. It also has an app that will llet you in and change the password if you forget it or one of your clients has forgotten it. I had a bad hard drive that would not boot windows. My friend added it to his system, booted up from the ERD Cd, copied all the files to his hard drive, ghosted it to a new hard drive and put it back on my computer - it worked.

Again - great info in the previous two posts...doc

 

[Bob Cerelli]

You do not need to reinstall if you forgot the admin password.

There is a boot disk you can download at:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

that will let you reset the password of any account on NT4, Windows2000 or XP.

Just follow all the default settings which are for the admin account. Used it many
times with great success.

They also have a bootable CD image you can download.

And it's free !!

 

[amateur]

Physician,
I just noticed that you are posting Adaware SE 1.05 under your signature. FYI, it is upgraded to 1.06 now.

 

[physician]

Physician,
I just noticed that you are posting Adaware SE 1.05 under your signature. FYI, it is upgraded to 1.06 now.

Thanks, the link takes you to version 1.06...doc