Need to access NT 2000 WS PC but don't have username/password.

January 19, 2006 11:40 AM

I've got a old dell laptop which, just before I retired it, I loaded up with NT 2000 workstation from a legit cd I had. And I've forgotten whichever username/password combo I cleverly used. Furthermore I can't find the orginal cd anywhere so that I could just reload the OS. Does anyone know of a way I can access this machine? I want to give it to my young daughter 'cause it's free.
posted by thayerg to computers & internet (8 comments total)

shazam! i've done the overwrite-the-SAM-file trick before on an XP box, it seems work!
posted by soma lkzx at 11:49 AM on January 19, 2006

I've used this boot disk/CD a few times. Boot it and it will reset your password.
posted by reynaert at 11:55 AM on January 19, 2006

Cooler than those (imo), is ophcrack, which will bruteforce the password using rainbow tables and actually tell you the password rather than resetting it. Download the LiveCD iso, burn and and boot from it.
posted by whatisish at 12:00 PM on January 19, 2006

I've used the boot disk in reynaert's link in the past with great success. 5 min. process.
posted by fidelity at 12:59 PM on January 19, 2006

Cain and Abel (google search, first result) will install on your machine and (after a reboot) will tell you ALL SORTS of wonderful things about your PC. Including any and all passwords (including HTTP/etc) that are stored there.

Kinda scary, actually.
posted by coriolisdave at 2:29 PM on January 19, 2006

Thanks very much indeed. Man I had no idea...
posted by thayerg at 2:39 PM on January 19, 2006

For what it's worth, Cain & Able is particularly interesting on a wireless network since you can sniff other users' (on your network) various passwords - http, pop, ftp, etc. Scary indeed.
posted by whatisish at 6:52 PM on January 19, 2006

ophcrack does indeed look cool, but 600MB of downloaded ISO is not worth the trouble unless there are encrypted files on the NTFS file system you're trying to recover (in which case you really do need the original password).

The offline registry editor that reynaert linked to is much smaller (3MB download) but only has one trick (it's a good trick, though!)

The Trinity Rescue Kit (current version is a ~80MB download, older version is ~20MB) includes the same chntpw program as the offline registry editor, but also has virus scanning, smbfs support, partition resizing and imaging tools and a heap of other cool stuff. I use it regularly for resurrecting dead PC's.
posted by flabdablet at 6:53 PM on January 19, 2006