How to Reset Lost Windows Password with Hiren’s BootCD

If you forgot your Windows password you will not be able to log in to Windows. So what to do in this case? Is there a free password cracking software to reset lost Windows password? Answer is yes. In this tutorial we’ll guide you through step-by-step procedure of resetting lost Windows password using a free Linux-based boot utility – Hiren’s BootCD.

Hiren’s BootCD is an ultimate solution to almost all your computer problems. It comes loaded with hell lot of tools. Each of them is powerful and can be really very helpful if used with caution. You can solve nearly all your PC problems like virus infection, hdd failure, data recovery, Hard disk partitioning, password recovery using this CD.

Note: Hiren’s BootCD a customized Linux distribution that you need to go through so many steps on Command Prompt to reset your forgotten Windows password. If you aren’t tech savvy, I recommend you use the Reset Windows Password utility which comes with GUI graphical interface.

How to Reset Lost Windows Password with Hiren’s BootCD?

To get started, download Hiren’s BootCD from here. Once the download is complete, unzip the download file and you’ll find two useful files: Hiren’s.BootCD.15.2.iso and BurnCDCC.exe. Simply burn the ISO image of Hiren’s BootCD to an empty CD using BurnCDCC program.

Boot your locked PC using Hiren’s BootCD that you’ve created. Make sure you have your BIOS set to boot from CD/DVD. Once you boot from the Hiren’s BootCD, you’ll see a list of powerful system repair and maintenance tools. Choose the Offline NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 Password Changer and press Enter.

The screen will display a list of Linux Kernel Boot options. Simply press Enter to continue.

Now the step to choose the correct drive where the Windows is installed. If you have more than one operating system then choose the correct drive and hit Enter. Here I will type “1″ and press Enter, because the /dev/sda1 is the system partition on my hard drive. Next press Enter to confirm that your registry directory is WINDOWS/system32/config.

When it asks you which part of registry to load, type “1″ and press Enter. When the “chntpw Main Interactive Menu” is shown, type “1″ and press Enter to choose the “Edit user data and passwords” option.

Now the screen will display a list of local user accounts existing on your registry file. For example, if you want to edit Windows administrator password, type “Administrator” and press Enter.

The program will display a list of account properties for your user account. To clear or blank your user account password, type “1″ and press Enter. You’ll receive a message that says “Password cleared!”

After successfully resetting your forgotten Windows password, type “!” to close the User Editor Tool.

Now type “q” and hit Enter to close the Offline Password Editor and Registry tool.

Now type “y” and hit Enter to confirm the password change.

Now it will ask you whether you want to use it again or not. Just type “n” and hit Enter.

Remove your Hiren’s BootCD and press ALT + Ctrl + Del to restart your system. You can then log on your computer with a blank/empty Windows password.

Source:

How to Reset Lost Windows Password with System Rescue CD

If you are a little more technical you might want to simply use the excellent System Rescue CD, which is based on Linux.

Note that if you are using standard Windows encryption for your files, resetting the password will permanently disable access to those files. In that case you should crack the password, which is something we’ll cover in an upcoming article.

If you are an Ubuntu user and forgot your password, we’ve covered how to do that as well, either the easy way with the grub menu or alternately with the live cd.

Creating the System Rescue CD

Before you can do anything else, you’ll need to download a copy of the System Rescue CD and mount to VM

Download the System Rescue CD from sysresccd.org

Resetting Your Password

Now that you have your boot CD, you’ll want to boot from it, which will take you to this very informative prompt, with some basic instructions on how to use the CD.

The first thing we’ll want to do is mount the hard drive, using this command. (Note that you might not need to use the –o force argument, it’s only really for when the system didn’t shut down correctly)

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows –o force

You can use the df –m command to verify that the drive has been mounted and that it’s the right drive. Note that it’s mounted on /mnt/windows at this point.

Now you’ll want to change directory into the Windows/System32/config directory inside of your windows installation. For mine, the full path was something like this, but it might be different on yours:

cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config

Once you are in that directory, you should see that there is a SAM file, which is where we’ll want to change the passwords.

To change the password we’ll use the chntpw command, and it’s most useful to use the –l argument first to list out all the usernames in the file.

chntpw –l SAM

Now you can add the –u argument with your username, which will end up being something like this command, except you’ll want to replace geek with your username:

chntpw –u geek SAM

This will present you with a wizard type screen:

I’m going to assume that you want to set a new password, so just type “2” at the prompt, add in your password, and remember to use the “y” key when prompted to save.

At this point your password has been changed, so you can issue the reboot command to restart the computer (should take the disc out of the drive)

And now you should be able to login with the new password:

Note that I tested this technique on both XP, Vista and Windows 7 with good results.

Note: You can use same procedure for reset password.

Source: 1

SystemRescueCd Download