How to recover Administrator Password on Windows?

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How to recover Administrator Password on Windows?

September 7th, 2007 Leave a comment Go to comments

Did you lost or totally forgot your windows Administrator password?
Opss.. you also have a limitted access profile? Then you can not do things like install/uninstall software or even make any change to the system properties.
Ok, do not panic and do not format your entire Windows. There are many different solution to it. Some come with a small fee, labor cost or support cost. BUT in this article you will get it recovered for free by just follow a few steps instruction below. I’ve came a cross this nice tool (Offline NT Password & Registry Editor) and I think it’s really worthwhile to post it here for everyone else who suffer from such an incident.
Eventhough you cannot recover the older password but you can set a new one. I’ll walk you through the process using Boot from CD method.

Preparation

1 CD and ISO Burning Software (eg. Nero)
Download this CD Image (zip file 2.85MB)
Unzip it using your favourit tool (eg. Winzip, 7-zip)
Burn the .iso file to CD. Using Disc Copy mode and point source drive to iso image and destination to CD Burner drive.
After it’s completed, you should have a bootable CD
Now, change your System CMOS to boot from CD ROM

Reset Password

Put that bootable CD in the drive
Reboot your computer from CD ROM

You should get this message

Disks:
Disk /dev/sda: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
NT partitions found:
1 :   /dev/sda1    2043MB  Boot

Please select partition by number or
a = show all partitions, d = automatically load new disk drivers
m = manually load new disk drivers
l = relist NTFS/FAT partitions, q = quit
Select: [1]

Disk partition 1 is selected by default. If there is more than one listed, chose the right one and Press Enter.

It will ask for path to registry directory

Mounting on /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
NTFS volume version 3.1.
Filesystem is: NTFS

=========================================================
. Step TWO: Select PATH and registry files
=========================================================
What is the path to the registry directory? (relative to windows disk)
[windows/system32/config] :

You notice the text in [ . . ] is the default value, if this is not right enter the right one according to which Operating system you are using.

winnt35/system32/config - Windows NT 3.51
winnt/system32/config - Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000
windows/system32/config - Windows XP/2003

then press Enter

A few options will be listed

Select which part of registry to load, use predefined choices
or list the files with space as delimiter
1 - Password reset [sam system security]
2 - RecoveryConsole parameters [software]
q - quit - return to previous
[1] :

Options 1 is selected by default, just Press Enter to resent Password

Another options list will display

Loaded hives:

1 - Edit user data and passwords
2 - Syskey status & change
3 - RecoveryConsole settings
- - -
9 - Registry editor, now with full write support!
q - Quit (you will be asked if there is something to save)

What to do? [1] -> 1

Press Enter to edit user data and passwords

List of System user will display

RID: 01f4, Username:
RID: 01f5, Username: , *disabled or locked*
RID: 03e8, Username: , *disabled or locked*
RID: 03eb, Username:
, *disabled or locked*
RID: 03ea, Username: , *disabled or locked*

Select: ! - quit, . - list users, 0x - User with RID (hex)
or simply enter the username to change: [Administrator]

Administrator is selected by default, just Press Enter

Now it comes to an End

* = blank the password (This may work better than setting a
new password!)
Enter nothing to leave it unchanged
Please enter new password: *

Enter new password for Administrator or Enter * if you don’t want any password

Do you really wish to change it? (y/n) [n]

Confirm the question by enter “y” and Press Enter
Now enter “!” then “q” to quit the menue
A confirm message will display before it make change to the system
```
About to write file(s) back! Do it? [n] : y
```
Enter “y” then Press Enter
Great, you’ve done it!
Reboot your computer now ( Ctrl + Alt + Del ) and don’t forget to take off the CD