OT - need computer help - password lost Win2000

[AJMD429]

My daughter is home from college and can't remember her User password for her Win2000 computer, and I thought I'd made all our family's computers have the same Administrator password for simplicity's sake, but evidently I didn't do that for hers. Now we can't log on with either.

We don't have any other "2000" machines, but I suppose we could take her drive out and put it in an external-drive box and hook it to the USB of another machine to get at her files, but needless to say she'd rather keep it all on her system and she likes 2000 better than XP anyway.

Anyone know a way to get the machine up and recover or change the passwords (that is doable by a computer-illiterate like myself... )...?

If it involves something hacker-ish you'd rather not post, you can PM me.

Thanks...

[Alan Wood]

Now I haven't tried this myself so I can't be sure that this works but I do know that the network admin at work used something along these lines to set the password for a machine at work.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows- ... rescue-cd/

[Chas.]

If you have the original Windows 2000 install CD, it might be easiest just to re-install 2000. You'll see a prompt to format the disk. Don't do it if you want to preserve her user files.

[Alan Wood]

So AJ have you solved the problem yet?

[AJMD429]

She is waiting to hear from some computer-help website, but no doubt she'll come ask me again to fix it sometime this week at midnight when I have an early and long day at work the next day...

Thanks for asking.

I'll try to remember and post the 'outcome'...

[FWiedner]

There is password recovery / cracking software for sale on the internet if you have another PC available with a CD burner.

Just search on Windows 2000 password recovery.

Most of them are pretty simple to use. Usually won't harm existing data.

[Alan Wood]

She is waiting to hear from some computer-help website, but no doubt she'll come ask me again to fix it sometime this week at midnight when I have an early and long day at work the next day...

Thanks for asking.

I'll try to remember and post the 'outcome'...

Oh the joys of being the families computer tech suppport line.

[oic0]

Download the program called Unetbootin on to another computer and pop a flash drive in (empty one or one with stuff you don't care about on it)

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Then from the distribution list, I think NTpasswd is the one you need? never fiddled with it before. Pretty sure that is what it is for. Then you just pop that flash drive in to the computer in question, pick it as the boot device (either press Fsomething for boot selection if it is an option OR go in to the bios and set the flash drive as the first boot device. Sometimes the option is hard to find or not even there on really old computers).

Another option would be to burn the thing to a CD, but unetbootin is so much easer you just pick what you want from the drop down, pick your flash drive from the drive list, hit go, and have a beer.

Alternatively if you just want her files, pick ubuntu from the distribution list. Then you have a portable operating system on a flash drive that you can pop in to any computer and grab files from. Another option is puppy linux, its not nearly as complete or user friendly as ubuntu but its a lot smaller and has persistent save files (while you can copy files to the flash drive ubuntu is on to rescue them, any changes you make to the Ubuntu OS wont be saved).

[41 Redhawk]

http://www.prime-expert.com/ebcd/

This site has a program called Emergency Boot CD. One of the utilities is a password resetting utility. I have had to use it several times and it works well. You will need to be able to create a CD. Simply boot to the CD and select the appropriate option from the menu.