Password situation with win2000

[mysts]

We have a computer with win2000 installed. It will boot up to the point where it askes for the administrator password. We don't know the password. Is there anyway to get pass this or simply delete the password. Once we get into the os we can change whatever needs to be changed. All the password revealers that we have seen require windows to be up and running.
Can we install DOS from a floppy and get to it from there.

[ozymango]

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

[Seeker47]

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

This one can be complicated to use, for non-techies and non-Linux folks. It also does not work in all situations. It has failed for me -- perhaps something to do with having multiple OS partitions and file systems interleaved on the HDD. There is something very similar to this Nordahl one included on some of the special Linux-based access/fix/hack Windows CDs, such as the UBCD. (CHGNTPWD ?)
Anyway, the good news is that I think there are a number of other utilities in this genre, and I probably have some bookmarks for them. Some are freeware, others not. Some are apparently much simpler to use than the Nordahl.

While we're on the subject, there was recently a forum thread or sticky here -- Requested Guides. I would very much like to find a detailed guide for making changes to the Windows Registry, using an "outside boot" / offline edit utility like the Nordahl one. It doesn't really have anything to do with video, but would be extremely useful. (The Nordahl FAQ just doesn't cut it, for this purpose.) When I've tried to do this without a proper guide, I very quickly get lost attempting to navigate the Registry hives from the command line, and lost in the techie command syntax of the the utility. Besides password problems, making a basic Registry edit seems to be the main suggested (temporary) cure for the "Can't Find Pagefile" lockout.

[Of course, the beauty of Windoze is that their are so very many ways to get hosed.]

[mysts]

I agree completely. It appears to have been written by some government agency with so much unneccessarily stuff left in. Maybe someone else will have a better suggestion later on.
Thanks for your reply.

[ozymango]

[
This one can be complicated to use, for non-techies and non-Linux folks. It also does not work in all situations. It has failed for me -- perhaps something to do with having multiple OS partitions and file systems interleaved on the HDD. ]

It's not a partition thing, it's a disk driver thing that causes this to fail -- it'll work with most drive configurations but of course not on whatever machine you really need to do this on.

And it's not actually that difficult to use, it just looks a bit much due to the Linux-style splash screens (all those /dev/0/hd/path lines!) -- if you read just a little of the docs, for the most part you can just hit "Enter" for most of the steps, it's really pretty automatic.

Along those lines, I guess I'm off the opinion that if you can't figure out how to use this boot disk, you shouldn't be trying to do whatever it is that you're trying to do to a computer. That is -- and no offense to the original poster -- if you've got a system where somebody has "lost" the password, my first reaction is a bunch of red flags. Where did you get the computer? Did you yourself forget the password because you haven't used the computer in ages? Are you just trying to recover the data off it?

[Scorpion King]

if you've got a system where somebody has "lost" the password, my first reaction is a bunch of red flags.

Nothing personal but I agree. I can't help but see red flags either.

My openion of passwords on computers in like putting up no tresspassing sign on your property. For whatever reason you just don't want others in there. I can't think of a good reason for not knowing the password in the first place. If you can't log on without it then who has been?

Like said above, that program is easy to use and will blank out the password so you can log on. If you want to do it safely then you should probably backup the drive with a program like Ghost. Just in case something goes wrong, which it might. Just follow the prompts slowly and read all you can before hitting Enter.

Good luck.

[Seeker47]

And it's not actually that difficult to use, it just looks a bit much due to the Linux-style splash screens (all those /dev/0/hd/path lines!) -- if you read just a little of the docs, for the most part you can just hit "Enter" for most of the steps, it's really pretty automatic.

I did read the Nordahl FAQ, and some instructions for CHGNTPWD, but found this anything but automatic. (Is the Registry hive layout the same for W2K vs. XP ?)

Along those lines, I guess I'm off the opinion that if you can't figure out how to use this boot disk, you shouldn't be trying to do whatever it is that you're trying to do to a computer. That is -- and no offense to the original poster -- if you've got a system where somebody has "lost" the password, my first reaction is a bunch of red flags. Where did you get the computer? Did you yourself forget the password because you haven't used the computer in ages? Are you just trying to recover the data off it?

Don't wish to be a contrarian, when you are clearly trying to help out, but I think you have taken some wrong turns here with your assumptions. I can't speak for the OP, but let me assure you that there are several ways you can get locked out of Windows no later than the Password screen, even though it is your computer, and you do have a legit license for Windows! With the W2K Pro I use, the only option I could find was one for automatic entry of the password at bootup, and I went with that. This might be considered a sort of Password bypass, but it is not the same thing as a boot without any password. I don't think you can do that with 2K, don't know about XP . . . but I'm far from being any sort of Win-geek. Anyway, I have seen the auto-password-entry thing get munged, and then you are screwed, unless you have some way to crack the Pwd.

But for a truly reliable way to get locked out, try HDD migration. When you move Win boot partitions onto a larger drive, and expand them to take advantage of the extra space, this generally entails sliding them further down the drive. I've found about three ways to get locked out doing this, losing Win bootability, and two of them happen at the password screen. The installed but migrated Windows is no longer accepted or recognized. (I'm looking at a particular set of variables, though -- multiple partitions / OSes / file systems -- that are probably not the same ones you are dealing with.) Exactly what needs to be hacked in order for this to work, I'm not sure. It could be the NT partition signature, or some hidden, hard-coded info about the HDD sectors where the boot partition is supposed to be, based on where they were at time of installation . . . or something else. Often it is not just the password that gets confused in a HDD migration, but Windows loses track of its Pagefile, and won't boot on account of that. The next thing I plan to try is Acronis Migrate Easy. It may have ways of finessing this, where other tools I've tried did not.