Windows Vista Password Crack.

Fallingman

Hi.

I'm aware that this will sound dodgy. All I can do is say that it's not, and I'm not using an alt. If you're not comfortable with that, then please feel free not post.

My Grandfather just passed away, and my mother (his daughter) needs to get into his laptop for reasons you can probably imagine. He was alway very sharp, and had begun utilising the internet a lot in the later years.

So, he had a spam problem a wee while back and in his ignorance, put a login password on the machine.

Can anyone point me to a "how to" to get into the machine?

It would be greatly appreciated. I'm not in the same country, but can either talk someone over there through it, or use logmein with my uncles machine if it requires the setup of a disk or something...

Syrdon

Depending on what you need access to, you can likely get it by running Ubuntu on a flash drive or maybe by reinstalling windows (that does bring with it a potential loss of data). You can also physically remove the hard drive, put it in another computer and boot on the original drive in that machine. You should be able to what you need to with an administrator account from there if I remember how windows sets things up correctly.

If the drive is encrypted, then you are really entering some territory where its hard to not misuse the answers (and they're complicated to boot) so you're on your in that case.

Fallingman

Cheers. Nothing complicated or nefarious enough to be encrypted.
Its more to capture family snaps/histories. And to be honest, if it came down to having to remove a HD, my family probably wouldn't bother.

BlindZenDriver

As Syrdon says. Boot the system with an OS on a stick, an USB drive or a DVD holding a bootable OS. Google for portable linux and you should find what is needed very quick. Try it out on a computer you have hands on so you're prepared for how it works (it's not complicated). Also having an extra USB stick ready to store the data recovered will come in handy.

Alternatively you can go the "hacking" direction but it get's complicated and possible time consuming. Since you're only looking for some files and it's very unlikely the disc is encrypted I would not recommend going this route.

Beazle

This has worked for me in the past with clients who have forgotten their passwords

http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

TychoCelchuuu

I've used Ophcrack multiple times before to great success. Beazle's link has also worked for me.

ben0207

Yeah, OPHCrack will do this without breaking a sweat.

Willeth

I would also recommend the Ubuntu-on-a-USB thing. Not only is it useful for this, it's great in general for extricating things from buggered machines - I used one to grab all my brother's music off his old laptop just the other week. It also gives you peace of mind in that you'll not have to worry about any crazy viruses that might be sitting on the drive - they'll be inactive under Linux, and you can just grab the files you need and go (although it won't protect you if you happen to copy infected files over and boot them under Windows again, of course).

EDIT: You can grab Ubuntu here, and if you follow the steps it'll show exactly how to make a USB stick that it'll run from. You'll need to change the boot order of your granddad's laptop to boot from USB before the HDD, but that's fairly trivial and covered in the steps on that site. The only thing that might not work off the bat is the wireless card, but for simple file transfer that won't be necessary.

urahonky

Keep in mind that not all computers can boot from the USB. It may just be better to make a LiveCD.

JustinSane07

You just need data off the PC?

Take the HDD out and put it in a USB dock.

No need to fumble around with cracking his password.

Fallingman

Thanks guys.
We're all sorted. We really appreciate the help.

Buraisu

If the person that owned the computer didn't create a password for the default Administrator account, you could use that. It normally defaults as a blank password.