Recover forgotten password in Vista?

Stivino

Stivino

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As it says in the title, I have a computer with a forgotten password. I've tried Ophcrack but it comes up with the following message and I don't know how to make it do what I want it to. "No partition containing hashes found"
I've put the hard drive into my own PC so I can now access all the folders. Is there a way to recover the password or delete the password folder, or something?
 
Do you have another user account on your Vista pc? If so, and it's an adminstrator account, and you know the password for that account (or it doesn't have one), then you can login in to Vista using that account and reset the password for your other account.
 
Hmm, well there are downloads you can try which promise to either crack the password or reset it to blank, not tried any myself so can't advise any specific one. Google is your friend, you should find several there, some of which you can burn to CD and run from boot-up. This is assuming you have access to another PC to download the software, of course...
 
I had the same problem with my neice's laptop and I used Ophcrack and got in no problem.

Not being cheeky but did you download the right version? Cos I didn't the first time...............................
 
I've got the right version of Ophcrack thanks. I downloaded it for someone else a few weeks ago, and it worked.
I've discovered there is a fix for the error message I'm getting but, it's too complicated for me.
I've formatted it now anyway. I'll have to put Vista back on now.
 
spotmau will reset it for you. I have heard that naughty people torrent it...
 
Just to let everyone know hecongyan has posted a link to a site with a very poor WOT rating and as such shouldn't be trusted, SPAM!

Talking of spam below is more spam probably from the same bloke whose post has been removed. There are freely available solution so no need for your spam and shareware rubbish :evil:
 
You can reset Vista password on command prompt with an available admin account to enter safe mode first. If you have another Windows Vista admin account, try these steps below:

Step 1: Press F8 when your Windows Vista PC is booting. You will come to the Advanced Boot Options. Then choose Safe Mode with Command Prompt and press Enter.

Step 2: Enter safe mode with an available admin account.

Step 3: Type "net user" and press Enter. The command prompt will show you all accounts on the Windows Vista PC.

Step 4: Type "net user Paul 123" (Paul is the locked admin account's name and 123 is the new password) and press Enter. Now you have successfully created a new password on the locked admin account.

Step 5: Type "shutdown -r -t 00" and press Enter.

Your Windows Vista PC should be rebooted automatically and then you can logon Windows Vista with the new password.

If you have only one admin account and you lost its password, I think you have to use some third party windows password recovery software. Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 is easy-to-use shareware to reset forgotten Windows password, including administrator password and other standard users' passwords. this software can 100% reset the forgotten password in few minutes. All you need to do is just three steps:

Step 1: Download Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0

Step 2: Burn a Windows password reset disk with the shareware

Step 3: Reset the forgotten Windows Vista admin password with the disk.

These two solutions are helpful for you to resolve the Vista admin password lost problem. Just to try.[/b]
 
When in windows "Safe Mode" can you do a search for all files with
****.pwl extension and just delete all password files.

* = wildcard so all files with the .pwl extension will come up in the search.

Will this not work?

I must be missing something?
 
I think pwl filee were last used in win 98.

XP onwards uses a SAM (security accounts manager) database to store log in details
 
Mursal said:
When in windows "Safe Mode" can you do a search for all files with
****.pwl extension and just delete all password files.

* = wildcard so all files with the .pwl extension will come up in the search.

Will this not work?

I must be missing something?
Click to expand...

Yep, about 17 years of basic admin knowledge.
 
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