Getting into a password locked lappie

[BolshieBastard]

Following on from that other thread (!), my son had a lappie which developed issues so he went out and bought a new one. Now, 3 years later, I want to trash the 'old' lappie but, need to delete everything on the HD first.

Before I do that, I'd like to see if it can be fixed or its completely fooked. Trouble is, he cant remember the password. So, how can I get past the windows log in? I think the lappie has XP on it.

[SimonMac]

Following on from that other thread (!), my son had a lappie which developed issues so he went out and bought a new one. Now, 3 years later, I want to trash the 'old' lappie but, need to delete everything on the HD first.

Before I do that, I'd like to see if it can be fixed or its completely fooked. Trouble is, he cant remember the password. So, how can I get past the windows log in? I think the lappie has XP on it.

Take a look at this and just use Boot and Nuke

[DaveB]

Following on from that other thread (!), my son had a lappie which developed issues so he went out and bought a new one. Now, 3 years later, I want to trash the 'old' lappie but, need to delete everything on the HD first.

Before I do that, I'd like to see if it can be fixed or its completely fooked. Trouble is, he cant remember the password. So, how can I get past the windows log in? I think the lappie has XP on it.

Lightweight bootable linux version on a USB stick or CD. Boot, mount the windows partition and blow away the password file. Reboot in windows and your done.

[SimonMac]

Lightweight bootable linux version on a USB stick or CD. Boot, mount the windows partition and blow away the password file. Reboot in windows and your done.

Password file?

[DaveB]

Password file?

%System Root%/system32/config/sam

Holds the (encrypted) user details and password associated with the accounts SID. Delete that and the account remains but the password is blanked.

If you want to exercise a little more finess you can delete the password hash from the file for the account you want access to.

If you want even more finesse you remove the hash, get into the account, do what you want with it, put the hash back, fiddle the file modification time on the SAM, and no-one will know you were there ( well, not without some pukka forensics anyway).