Rufus does work well If you are trying to get through to "Windows Password" However if you are locked out at the HDD (hard drive) password that is set by the computer manufacturer, then you must call them to get the master password that is set on the "hard drive" when it was bought.
Great tool. I've been using a custom linux distro where I can just do it in a few clicks with a GUI. Sometimes the SAM file isn't in the right location and cmd line doesn't work right. I think it should be worth mentioning that if the drive is encrypted, you will fubar the entire thing by doing a SAM file related PW reset. You also cannot unlock accounts that use a Microsoft Account login with any tool that I've used/found.
It's funny you made this video today. I was tasked to install something on a work machine with lost admin password. I just booted Kali and used chntpw only to discover the only admin was the Administrator account. We discovered that a previous staff was using Administrator as normal user with her personal Gmail logged in and League of Legends installation files in her download folder. I removed quite a lot of things before proceeding
There is a "trick" you could do if all you have is a Windows install media (CD/DVD/USB/etc.). Boot into that, then at the start screen press Shift-F10 to open the command prompt. Then you can rename the file d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe to something else temporarily, whatever you want - just so you can undo this later. Copy d:\windows\system32\cmd.exe as a replacement to the above file. Then reboot the machine without the install media. When asked for login credentials, click the Utility Manager icon (should be bottom left). This now opens a command line window. At which point you can use the NET USER command to rest passwords all you like. Add extra users, set them as administrator, whatever you please. No need to know any password. Been a trick for a long while now, I know it worked in W7, and it still does in W10.
That's exactly the method I use. You can rename any of the Accessibility Tools to be replaced by cmd.exe. Also, later on cmd if you just use the command "net user" it will list all the available usernames, then you pick one and input "net user " and it will change/apply the to the . Sometimes it will output that you don't have permission for that, so you can use the Administrator account instead. Even after changing said account it might not show up, and that's because it's not active, so, again on cmd you input "net user administrator /active:yes" and that account will now show in the login window and you can log in with the password you gave it.
Brilliant guide, nice and clear and takes you through every step. More importantly its the only guide that actually worked after hours of searching! Thanks a lot.
One tip: if you run Windows 10, be sure to do a "complete" shutdown, by holding 'Shift' when you click on the Shutdown icon. Apparently Windows 10 does some hybrid/partial shutdown by default. Took a while to figure out why normally powering down wasn't doing the trick....
I had the exact same problem, it had a message that the Windows is hibernated and it failed. It took me some time to figure it out. I also hold the Shift key while shutting windows down and it worked!
Chris - I see that you enabled the admin, while other login accounts were listed.. Was not this video about resetting forgotten passwords? Is the procedure the same for a regular account [such as Titus]? Will it function the same? thanks. dw
This is why you should have a bios password to stop people booting from usb. Also this won't work if the drive has bitlocker enabled. Microsoft know the passwords can be easily reset which is why they advice you use bios passwords and encryption.
@@haydenborst6272 The battery is not for BIOS its for CMOS. But you will have a problem if your System/Mainboard uses NVRAM to store BIOS configuration parameters because there is no separate battery...its in the NVRAM module an you can not pull it out.
Linux is just as easy and even easier. Just launch into single use mode from grub and there you go. The only wait you can protect yourself is drive encryption.
Thanks Chris, this was really handy to know as I've just "upgraded" my fairly old (2006 vintage) machine from Win7 to Win10. It became apparent that at some point I'd set a password for my default user account, and that I'd totally forgotten that I'd done that, and of course what the password was (I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked). Anyway, I followed your instructions and apart from a problem I had with the USB thumb drive I was using (it was one of those which converts an SD card to USB in an adapter), and used a "proper" one, it worked exactly as it should. A possible side-effect was that the next time I ran MS Outlook, it seemed to have "forgotten" all the email passwords for my email accounts, and I've had to put them back into the config. Assuming this is NOT a coincidence, I presume Outlook is using the same file for its email account password that the Windows account manager is using? Thanks for your hard work, Chris, and I hope 2020 is a good year for you and yours.
Thanks! I just got this to work on an old Dell Optiplex (Vista) machine. It was a little different, and I had to go back a few times, but finally figured it out. It is easier than most other procedures I found, which most wouldn't work on Vista.
Excellent Video, I used it for a computer at work that disconnected from the domain, i enabled the Administrator account reconnected it to the domain and logged in and then turned the Admin Off, Thans Chirs!!
Nice, no muss - no fuss. Also complies with my daytime employer/s, "no use of third party software" rule. One more usb drive to put in my quick fix stash. I'll have a rash of lockouts in the last week of August/first week of September and again from a week before Christmas until New Years Day. This will save me a lot of time.
Thank soooooooo much. You really saved me a lot. I joined my PC to a network and after some months, I had to change the account user name and password from the domain AD for my own reasons. After doing this successfully, I got this error "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed " when I tried signing in using the new username and password so the only option was to unjoin it from the network and join it again BUT I had to first login with the local Administrator account which I did not Know and this stressed me a lot but you saved me. Thank You so much. God Bless you for sharing this.
After plugging in the usb to the locked computer, all you have to do is reset it? I tried that and nothing happened. I wen the boot menu and secure boot is on idk if that has something to do with it.
looks exactly like "Trinity", I've used for over a decade... worked on a Win10 box recently. it's old AF, meaning Winders never bothered to fix anything.
Chris, I installed the game Life is Strange on Linux (an ext4-partition), the performance was not good so I installed it on Windows too. It seems that playing this game on Linux (probably with OpenGL) costs me around 30-50% FPS while using the same settings, to the point that it makes the game unplayable on Linux while it is pretty well playable on Windows with my hardware (i5-750 and HD 7850) even though there clearly is some stutter because of a CPU-bottleneck. On Windows I could put MSAA on 2x and still the FPS was a lot higher. It seems that this is not one of the games which works well on Linux, unfortunately. The game has native Linux support but the developer and/or AMD put a lot less effor in supporting OpenGL than in supporting DX9 and that is being shown by the system requirements on PCGamingWiki.
Dvizz zzivD True, and thank you for your answer. I’m currently using Arch + Manjaro, and its awesome! Im never going back to Windows (unless it’s some type of a need)
Hi Chris, thanks for the video, Following this i have a quick question to ask, how this is going to work if you have your hard drive encrypted (like is it in the most enterprises today)?
YO! I made a really old video on this exact stuff back in the xp days. Check it out. Even has the setup music. Microsoft did not claim it for some reason. ua-cam.com/video/xwjLqr65oM8/v-deo.html&t
@@bizzystradlin7751 sorry but this is still a thing and it does work, you either run on a system with a domain controller and your user has limited access to the command line or you did not open cmd as administrator, also obviously dont include the single quotes. as that command is something i use a lot when i run my automated setup scripts at my job.
I spoke too soon. Was able to open and get in as admin. Looks like the previous user loaded win 10 pro without activation. So one in it won't let me make user changes. Using your script, I noticed password not required has an X. Admin does not. The user pw is on "blank" but it ask for a pin or pw.
NIce trick. Unfortunately this will not work if you have secure boot properly setup and a bios password. But I believe that there are just so many security issues in windows that it does not matter anymore. BTW I fully switched to linux on my thinkpad x230 as a daily driver for school with a windows vm for office and closed sourced stuff. Gonna make the switch on the desktop when I get a bit more powerful hardware and when the anti cheat stuff in games are fixed. Cheers!
Ali Rahman despite all my failled attempts to install arch... I know I am a brainlet. I am using antergos. I was using Linux mint before that for almost a year. Then I checked out kde neon. Fell in love with kde. But neon was Debian based and I did not want that, so I just installed the plasma desktop on antergos. What about you? What distro are *you* using and if so, how did you end up on it?
That would be more direct, if you did not have administrator access. But if your administrator account is enabled, and you know the password, then your administrator account could reset passwords for other accounts. In this video, he showed how to get administrator access, which once logged in, gives you access to do whatever else you decide to do. The procedure for resetting the other logins would essentially be the same as what we watched for resetting the administrator account.
Chris, I just installed a second SSD. While working on that (partitioning, mounting with fstab, changing permissions) I got this idea: the best protection against ransomware is to use encrypted partitions, the criminals can't encrypt it if you encrypted it yourself, right? Maybe you could look into that and do a video on it. How easy or difficult is it to set up Linux with full encryption for your partitions. Do you get any performance penalty? Is there any risk? How exactly does this encryption work (not the technical process of encryption but the usage of an encrypted system)?
You definitely can encrypt already encrypted files, i don't know if there is something on OS level that would prevent it, but you can put encryption on top encryption on ordinary files as many times as you want, provided the fact that decrypting them would become more painful the more encryption you have
If your encrypted volume is mounted, the ransomware can still encrypt your files. It's common for Linux distros to offer whole disk encryption as a simple checkbox option at install. I've had no trouble with this. With encryption acceleration built into modern CPUs, you shouldn't notice much if any performance impact.
So encryption doesn't offer any protection against ransomware. Bummer. Thanks for the explanation. All right, my next attempt. Keeping the partition isolated from the external world with the exception of a particular service (Steam/Battlenet) but having full access to it on your local system. If that works then that would be a great video.
Hi Chris I eventually got going but you may like to consider a few providoes. My bios didn't support booting off the USB stick. No worries, I created a bootable CD using the iso file. Unfortunately a used a Windows me laptop. Need Windows xp or above for the program to create the bootable stick. Running the bootable CD worked I reached finding the partition where windows is. It reported that Windows was in hibernate mode and it would not mount the disk. Even asking to ignore this, it still didn't work. Going into Windows and asking to Shut Down did not help. The way around this is when Windows starts up, press the power switch and force it to turn off. After a couple of times of doing this, you get the message repair. Go into options and select Power down PC. Swapping back to the bootable CD you now can mount the the partition. Many thanks for your vidéo
Windows Vista doesn't show user accounts in computer management. I did get it figured out from another video. Also, Windows 7 Ultimate is a little different. To quit, type "!" instead of "q" to quit. Took me a few minutes to see that, as I was following this video.
Not certain about the points made but ,if anyone else wants to discover admin password recovery windows try Bablim Simple Code Booster(do a search on google ) ? Ive heard some unbelievable things about it and my work buddy got amazing results with it.
Forgot your password in MacOS? Press COMMAND+R at boot to enter recovery mode, open terminal and type "resetpassword" (no space or quotes). That simple!!!!
Thank you for the idea on how to reset the password. my case was Win 10 on Virtual Box, I had to use Hiren's Boot Cd and go to the settings of Virtual Box to add a new hard as IDE then map it with the image of Hiren's boot cd.
Thank You , needed this so much . I just had to put hard drive in another computer , could no access bios , to boot to usb . I was like 3 days later and like , why didn't I just slap the hard drive in other computer .
Hi Chris. I just saw your video. I forgot my password, and I actually took the laptop to a tech place, and they were going to copy the data and put it back on, but the 32-bit encryption was somehow put on. Does this work even with that on? And if so, it won't delete my files, correct?
So, I got a computer today and had this very issue. Problem is, when I try to boot this thumb drive, I get a Kernel Panic message. So, it probably doesn't work on everything. Back to the search for a Windows 10 password hacker...
If it still holds true, when you reset a users password through this route you can lose access to any encrypted files the user may have had. Correct me if this has changed.
Does it delete the files of the user when you reset the pwd, like the same feature from on windows? By the way it still works with the last version 21H1?
I know this is an old vid, but using this info, I cannot get the laptop with the usb to start with the USB iso. There's a gap in the info for me. I have rufus on my PC, put the iso on the usb and plugged the usb into the laptop. it's an HP and hasn't been used in 3 years. no amount of restarting, getting into auto repair (diagnosing pc) has given me any sort of results. I cannot get to the cmd prompt because it goes to the user password to access that. Top it off, the laptop has partitions.. I don't know why but looks like 3 or more. C is boot, then there is X and I forget what the others were. And it won't boot from the usb still.
So what do you do for a VM system? Cause it is the VM systems that give us the most problems. A month or two ago I went to boot up my W10 VM system and much to my chagrin I realized I had forgotten the password. Granted I last used the password months or more ago but still. So your video says this solution doesn't work for VMs. What does work for VMs?
Weird, not working for me. I make all the changes, save the hive data, reboot, and i don't get the Administrator account, nor i can get into another account that i cleared the password. Everything stays the same.
i did all of it and when i press -ctr alt del- it rebooted and said "your pc ran into a problem, we need to restart your pc" and now it keeps restarting with a blue screen saying the same thing.
I have used this successfully on a number of older machines, but I've tried it with a few new Windows 10 machines and it gets stuck at "botting kernel". I can't seem to find any information about how to get past that.
well ,it did not work for me, i did all step by step as u say to the download on the USB, then i did rudus as well all till i connect to the computer the is lock, still not goind to the CMD , and if i go to the repair part on any icon is ask me is is that the administrator the i want to work on it, and ask for password, so as well use another usb to see if i can go to that part the will run the usb first, but is ok , only run an other start up, (macrum) is a software to clone the i use on the past, but that work, open cmd but cant the one u show here, pls help
trying this on windows 10 at the first option to boot, i hit enter and just get a kernel panic and its stuck... anyone have any suggestions? other methods have failed as well i'm at the point where it might be easier to rebuild.
Hi Chris, I know this video has been posted more than 2 years, is there a way where in can edit the settings on every username? Say I want to enable/disable "Passwd not required"
rufus couldn't create a bootable USB drive that would work on a gigabyte motherboard, tried changing Bios to only boot to usb and all the different USB ports, the USB drive was there to select but it wouldnt boot to it.
I've been using this tool for ages. However, I recently tried it on a Lenovo laptop and it doesn't work. If the account has administrator privileges, you have to have to have the password to overwrite it.
Having a issue here, when plugging the USB into the locked computer it isnt booting up as yours. Also when trying to Boot via USB it doesn't appear. what am i doing wrong ?
Awesome method, but i think you confuse it a little. Anyone would go ahead and try to reset immediately the pass for the account used and not the admin account. It wdnt be a problem wd it? it seems the tut above it is for people with virus in the comp that needs clean up.
Thank you so much for such a valuable video sir. I don't know words to thank you. But I only have a single problem. Is there any way to brute force the pins since we have only 10000 combinations? Password resetting didn't recover the pin for my case. Thank you so much again
It looks extremely helpful. I am struggling with Dell with Win 8.1. Unfortunately the tool can't find the windows partition. Just the whole disk. With Macrium Reflect I can see all of the partitions including the one with windows. Any tip?
loot at my recent post... copy offline the following files to another computer, reset then put them back... (don't forget to back them up first by copying them into a backup folder or something) c:\users\UserNameToBeReset\NTUSER.DAT c:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM c:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE c:\Windows\System32\config\SECURITY c:\Windows\System32\config\SAM c:\Windows\System32\config\DEFAULT
Oh my god this was so simple, why are all the other guides so complicated? Thank you so much
I am using this tool ever since as well. Always saved the user from depression :)
Rufus does work well If you are trying to get through to "Windows Password" However if you are locked out at the HDD (hard drive) password that is set by the computer manufacturer, then you must call them to get the master password that is set on the "hard drive" when it was bought.
Great tool. I've been using a custom linux distro where I can just do it in a few clicks with a GUI. Sometimes the SAM file isn't in the right location and cmd line doesn't work right. I think it should be worth mentioning that if the drive is encrypted, you will fubar the entire thing by doing a SAM file related PW reset. You also cannot unlock accounts that use a Microsoft Account login with any tool that I've used/found.
It's funny you made this video today. I was tasked to install something on a work machine with lost admin password. I just booted Kali and used chntpw only to discover the only admin was the Administrator account.
We discovered that a previous staff was using Administrator as normal user with her personal Gmail logged in and League of Legends installation files in her download folder.
I removed quite a lot of things before proceeding
Work on imac
There is a "trick" you could do if all you have is a Windows install media (CD/DVD/USB/etc.).
Boot into that, then at the start screen press Shift-F10 to open the command prompt. Then you can rename the file d:\windows\system32\utilman.exe to something else temporarily, whatever you want - just so you can undo this later.
Copy d:\windows\system32\cmd.exe as a replacement to the above file. Then reboot the machine without the install media. When asked for login credentials, click the Utility Manager icon (should be bottom left). This now opens a command line window.
At which point you can use the NET USER command to rest passwords all you like. Add extra users, set them as administrator, whatever you please. No need to know any password.
Been a trick for a long while now, I know it worked in W7, and it still does in W10.
That's exactly the method I use. You can rename any of the Accessibility Tools to be replaced by cmd.exe. Also, later on cmd if you just use the command "net user" it will list all the available usernames, then you pick one and input "net user " and it will change/apply the to the . Sometimes it will output that you don't have permission for that, so you can use the Administrator account instead. Even after changing said account it might not show up, and that's because it's not active, so, again on cmd you input "net user administrator /active:yes" and that account will now show in the login window and you can log in with the password you gave it.
I used this too .. it was amazing trick and makes you look like hacker somehow 😂😂😂
I'm using this for more than 10 years.. great piece of tool
Brilliant guide, nice and clear and takes you through every step. More importantly its the only guide that actually worked after hours of searching! Thanks a lot.
One tip: if you run Windows 10, be sure to do a "complete" shutdown, by holding 'Shift' when you click on the Shutdown icon.
Apparently Windows 10 does some hybrid/partial shutdown by default.
Took a while to figure out why normally powering down wasn't doing the trick....
I had the exact same problem, it had a message that the Windows is hibernated and it failed. It took me some time to figure it out. I also hold the Shift key while shutting windows down and it worked!
Thank you mate!
Didn't see how he created his new password. I know he wiped the password, but he typed a password when it logged back in. Didn't see him create it.
2:20 is when the video actually starts
Thanks a lot helped a lot skipped a ton
Good job...
Chris - I see that you enabled the admin, while other login accounts were listed.. Was not this video about resetting forgotten passwords? Is the procedure the same for a regular account [such as Titus]? Will it function the same? thanks. dw
This is why you should have a bios password to stop people booting from usb. Also this won't work if the drive has bitlocker enabled. Microsoft know the passwords can be easily reset which is why they advice you use bios passwords and encryption.
just pull the battery, reset bios
@@haydenborst6272 The battery is not for BIOS its for CMOS. But you will have a problem if your System/Mainboard uses NVRAM to store BIOS configuration parameters because there is no separate battery...its in the NVRAM module an you can not pull it out.
@@haydenborst6272 The bitlocker encrption is less easy to get around. This is why you do both.
Linux is just as easy and even easier. Just launch into single use mode from grub and there you go. The only wait you can protect yourself is drive encryption.
Worked great. Had a locked out 'boot' drive and all the other tricks failed. This came right up and allowed me to reset the computer admin!
Thanks Chris, this was really handy to know as I've just "upgraded" my fairly old (2006 vintage) machine from Win7 to Win10. It became apparent that at some point I'd set a password for my default user account, and that I'd totally forgotten that I'd done that, and of course what the password was (I tried everything I could think of, but nothing worked).
Anyway, I followed your instructions and apart from a problem I had with the USB thumb drive I was using (it was one of those which converts an SD card to USB in an adapter), and used a "proper" one, it worked exactly as it should.
A possible side-effect was that the next time I ran MS Outlook, it seemed to have "forgotten" all the email passwords for my email accounts, and I've had to put them back into the config.
Assuming this is NOT a coincidence, I presume Outlook is using the same file for its email account password that the Windows account manager is using?
Thanks for your hard work, Chris, and I hope 2020 is a good year for you and yours.
Yep..have used this for years, mainly when CD boot was popular, but now on USB is nice.
What a time saver! You sir have provided such an awesome service and I can't commend you enough! Now my mom can use her laptop again! Cheers to you!
the program seems to hang at booting the kernal after hitting enter
I've used this before and can tell you that it works however I'm currently having this same issue with a clients PC. Was this ever resolved?
Thanks! I just got this to work on an old Dell Optiplex (Vista) machine. It was a little different, and I had to go back a few times, but finally figured it out. It is easier than most other procedures I found, which most wouldn't work on Vista.
awesome video...please do this type of video more often...very good for IT administrators
Excellent Video, I used it for a computer at work that disconnected from the domain, i enabled the Administrator account reconnected it to the domain and logged in and then turned the Admin Off, Thans Chirs!!
freezes on
Booting the kernel.
what's wrong?
I posted an alternative that involves copying over the files to another computer, resetting then copy them back
Nice, no muss - no fuss. Also complies with my daytime employer/s, "no use of third party software" rule. One more usb drive to put in my quick fix stash. I'll have a rash of lockouts in the last week of August/first week of September and again from a week before Christmas until New Years Day. This will save me a lot of time.
Thank soooooooo much. You really saved me a lot. I joined my PC to a network and after some months, I had to change the account user name and password from the domain AD for my own reasons. After doing this successfully, I got this error "The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed " when I tried signing in using the new username and password so the only option was to unjoin it from the network and join it again BUT I had to first login with the local Administrator account which I did not Know and this stressed me a lot but you saved me. Thank You so much. God Bless you for sharing this.
I really love this video teacher from now on will be following you alot
This was very helpfull and compared to other solitions you find on youtube very easy! Thanx a lot! :-)
Great video! Thanks for guiding me through the password reset.
bro, haven't seen this reset in a few years, I used on Hiran Utility CD, man great stuff, I was wondering what I did with that CD lol, thanks again.
Hoping this still works Chris, thank you so much for posting!
THIS WORKS YOUVE TRIED IT ?
After plugging in the usb to the locked computer, all you have to do is reset it? I tried that and nothing happened. I wen the boot menu and secure boot is on idk if that has something to do with it.
Thanks a million bro. You are the best! It did work. Now I just need to know if I can redo the account I forget the password for.
Thanks Chris! Downloaded this video. EXCELLENT info!
looks exactly like "Trinity", I've used for over a decade... worked on a Win10 box recently. it's old AF, meaning Winders never bothered to fix anything.
I've been using hirens boot CDs tool to do this with minixp interface for years till I realise that there was an updated version with win10 interface
Kyhi’s rescue disk is awesome as well
Chris, I installed the game Life is Strange on Linux (an ext4-partition), the performance was not good so I installed it on Windows too. It seems that playing this game on Linux (probably with OpenGL) costs me around 30-50% FPS while using the same settings, to the point that it makes the game unplayable on Linux while it is pretty well playable on Windows with my hardware (i5-750 and HD 7850) even though there clearly is some stutter because of a CPU-bottleneck. On Windows I could put MSAA on 2x and still the FPS was a lot higher. It seems that this is not one of the games which works well on Linux, unfortunately. The game has native Linux support but the developer and/or AMD put a lot less effor in supporting OpenGL than in supporting DX9 and that is being shown by the system requirements on PCGamingWiki.
Windows is hibernated, refused to mount. The system was properly shut down.Failed to mount sda4.
Thank you, help me a lot. You help to fix my computer, I could go through to my laptop even without the password.
50k subs! Amazing!
Dvizz zzivD Hows that relevant to anything ? Lol... Btw, what distro do you use? (Assuming you use Linux)
Dvizz zzivD True, and thank you for your answer. I’m currently using Arch + Manjaro, and its awesome! Im never going back to Windows (unless it’s some type of a need)
Civil UA-cam Replies... Now I know this is a dream...
Hi Chris, thanks for the video,
Following this i have a quick question to ask, how this is going to work if you have your hard drive encrypted (like is it in the most enterprises today)?
1. Step: Open cmd as system user
2. Step: Type 'net user username *' into cmd
@@bizzystradlin7751 no reason to scream at me with caps. It used to work
YO! I made a really old video on this exact stuff back in the xp days. Check it out. Even has the setup music. Microsoft did not claim it for some reason. ua-cam.com/video/xwjLqr65oM8/v-deo.html&t
@@bizzystradlin7751 sorry but this is still a thing and it does work, you either run on a system with a domain controller and your user has limited access to the command line or you did not open cmd as administrator, also obviously dont include the single quotes.
as that command is something i use a lot when i run my automated setup scripts at my job.
Totally just saved me! THANKS
I spoke too soon. Was able to open and get in as admin. Looks like the previous user loaded win 10 pro without activation. So one in it won't let me make user changes. Using your script, I noticed password not required has an X. Admin does not. The user pw is on "blank" but it ask for a pin or pw.
Trying to help a recent widow get in so she can take care of business.
NIce trick. Unfortunately this will not work if you have secure boot properly setup and a bios password. But I believe that there are just so many security issues in windows that it does not matter anymore.
BTW I fully switched to linux on my thinkpad x230 as a daily driver for school with a windows vm for office and closed sourced stuff. Gonna make the switch on the desktop when I get a bit more powerful hardware and when the anti cheat stuff in games are fixed.
Cheers!
Just curious, but what distro did you switch to??
Ali Rahman despite all my failled attempts to install arch... I know I am a brainlet. I am using antergos. I was using Linux mint before that for almost a year. Then I checked out kde neon. Fell in love with kde. But neon was Debian based and I did not want that, so I just installed the plasma desktop on antergos. What about you? What distro are *you* using and if so, how did you end up on it?
What I mean is that the video doesn't show you resetting the password for Titus, which I would assume would be the account you'd want to reset.
That would be more direct, if you did not have administrator access. But if your administrator account is enabled, and you know the password, then your administrator account could reset passwords for other accounts.
In this video, he showed how to get administrator access, which once logged in, gives you access to do whatever else you decide to do.
The procedure for resetting the other logins would essentially be the same as what we watched for resetting the administrator account.
Chris, I just installed a second SSD. While working on that (partitioning, mounting with fstab, changing permissions) I got this idea: the best protection against ransomware is to use encrypted partitions, the criminals can't encrypt it if you encrypted it yourself, right? Maybe you could look into that and do a video on it. How easy or difficult is it to set up Linux with full encryption for your partitions. Do you get any performance penalty? Is there any risk? How exactly does this encryption work (not the technical process of encryption but the usage of an encrypted system)?
You definitely can encrypt already encrypted files, i don't know if there is something on OS level that would prevent it, but you can put encryption on top encryption on ordinary files as many times as you want, provided the fact that decrypting them would become more painful the more encryption you have
If your encrypted volume is mounted, the ransomware can still encrypt your files. It's common for Linux distros to offer whole disk encryption as a simple checkbox option at install. I've had no trouble with this. With encryption acceleration built into modern CPUs, you shouldn't notice much if any performance impact.
So encryption doesn't offer any protection against ransomware. Bummer. Thanks for the explanation.
All right, my next attempt. Keeping the partition isolated from the external world with the exception of a particular service (Steam/Battlenet) but having full access to it on your local system. If that works then that would be a great video.
Don’t forget to make frequent backups. And test your backups.
@@mitchelvalentino1569 And as I one heard someone say, if you haven't tested your backup, you don't have a backup.
Bro when i in de admin account what is the next step to reset my personal account? I'm not seeing that step in your video
Net user [your account name] new password then hit enter
Man... Love your videos, you’re awesome ✌🏻
Hi Chris
I eventually got going but you may like to consider a few providoes.
My bios didn't support booting off the USB stick. No worries, I created a bootable CD using the iso file.
Unfortunately a used a Windows me laptop. Need Windows xp or above for the program to create the bootable stick.
Running the bootable CD worked I reached finding the partition where windows is. It reported that Windows was in hibernate mode and it would not mount the disk. Even asking to ignore this, it still didn't work. Going into Windows and asking to Shut Down did not help.
The way around this is when Windows starts up, press the power switch and force it to turn off. After a couple of times of doing this, you get the message repair. Go into options and select Power down PC. Swapping back to the bootable CD you now can mount the the partition.
Many thanks for your vidéo
The Windows reset password screen does not appear for me 4:49 point.
thanks chris youre a life saver as always
Is this working on EFI mode?
@Chris , thank you so much, this was amazing, very useful!!!
Windows Vista doesn't show user accounts in computer management. I did get it figured out from another video.
Also, Windows 7 Ultimate is a little different. To quit, type "!" instead of "q" to quit. Took me a few minutes to see that, as I was following this video.
hangs on "booting kernel." doh!
same here
Same here too
Same here has anybody gotten past this yet
Not certain about the points made but ,if anyone else wants to discover admin password recovery windows try Bablim Simple Code Booster(do a search on google ) ? Ive heard some unbelievable things about it and my work buddy got amazing results with it.
Make sure computer is restarted in windows properly then try again
Forgot your password in MacOS? Press COMMAND+R at boot to enter recovery mode, open terminal and type "resetpassword" (no space or quotes). That simple!!!!
Thank you for the idea on how to reset the password. my case was Win 10 on Virtual Box, I had to use Hiren's Boot Cd and go to the settings of Virtual Box to add a new hard as IDE then map it with the image of Hiren's boot cd.
Thank You , needed this so much . I just had to put hard drive in another computer , could no access bios , to boot to usb . I was like 3 days later and like , why didn't I just slap the hard drive in other computer .
Thank you very much, This was helpful.
Can't get it to work. no options will work and it just scrolls and stops at Kernal Panic Not sync
Very helpful. liked and subscribed
Yep, worked great mate!
Worked like a charm, thanks
very useful explanation
Hi Chris. I just saw your video. I forgot my password, and I actually took the laptop to a tech place, and they were going to copy the data and put it back on, but the 32-bit encryption was somehow put on. Does this work even with that on? And if so, it won't delete my files, correct?
This is the best bacon saver ever!
So, I got a computer today and had this very issue. Problem is, when I try to boot this thumb drive, I get a Kernel Panic message. So, it probably doesn't work on everything. Back to the search for a Windows 10 password hacker...
I have also used this for around 10 years. If has always worked. I've used others with graphical interfaces but they have never been as reliable.
Will this work using a DVD instead of a usb?
If it still holds true, when you reset a users password through this route you can lose access to any encrypted files the user may have had. Correct me if this has changed.
Mine stops at 'booting the kernel' Any suggestions?
Me too... How'd you fix it?
Does it delete the files of the user when you reset the pwd, like the same feature from on windows? By the way it still works with the last version 21H1?
I know this is an old vid, but using this info, I cannot get the laptop with the usb to start with the USB iso. There's a gap in the info for me. I have rufus on my PC, put the iso on the usb and plugged the usb into the laptop. it's an HP and hasn't been used in 3 years. no amount of restarting, getting into auto repair (diagnosing pc) has given me any sort of results. I cannot get to the cmd prompt because it goes to the user password to access that. Top it off, the laptop has partitions.. I don't know why but looks like 3 or more. C is boot, then there is X and I forget what the others were. And it won't boot from the usb still.
So what do you do for a VM system? Cause it is the VM systems that give us the most problems. A month or two ago I went to boot up my W10 VM system and much to my chagrin I realized I had forgotten the password. Granted I last used the password months or more ago but still. So your video says this solution doesn't work for VMs. What does work for VMs?
Thanks this was very helpful
I was like "bet this is pogostick" click show more "pogostick, yep"
Weird, not working for me. I make all the changes, save the hive data, reboot, and i don't get the Administrator account, nor i can get into another account that i cleared the password. Everything stays the same.
This tool works fine for local account but does it work for microsoft account as well?
Does it still work on window 10 current builds?
i did all of it and when i press -ctr alt del- it rebooted and said "your pc ran into a problem, we need to restart your pc" and now it keeps restarting with a blue screen saying the same thing.
I have used this successfully on a number of older machines, but I've tried it with a few new Windows 10 machines and it gets stuck at "botting kernel". I can't seem to find any information about how to get past that.
I posted an alternative that involves copying over the files to another computer, resetting then copy them back
Thank you very much, this worked.
well ,it did not work for me, i did all step by step as u say to the download on the USB, then i did rudus as well all till i connect to the computer the is lock, still not goind to the CMD , and if i go to the repair part on any icon is ask me is is that the administrator the i want to work on it, and ask for password, so as well use another usb to see if i can go to that part the will run the usb first, but is ok , only run an other start up, (macrum) is a software to clone the i use on the past, but that work, open cmd but cant the one u show here, pls help
trying this on windows 10 at the first option to boot, i hit enter and just get a kernel panic and its stuck... anyone have any suggestions? other methods have failed as well i'm at the point where it might be easier to rebuild.
Wont resetting a password make personal data unusable (encrypted) ?
The data isn't encrypted unless you encrypted it.
Windows security at finest
Will this work if Windows disk encryption is enabled?
doesnt work anymore stuck on booting the kernel
Will this also work for bios password NOTE BOOT TO USB DEFAULT NOT SET also Its 64 BIT
big thanks for you sir, this is really helpful
Hi Chris, I know this video has been posted more than 2 years, is there a way where in can edit the settings on every username?
Say I want to enable/disable "Passwd not required"
R.I.P. Windows 7
rufus couldn't create a bootable USB drive that would work on a gigabyte motherboard, tried changing Bios to only boot to usb and all the different USB ports, the USB drive was there to select but it wouldnt boot to it.
I've been using this tool for ages. However, I recently tried it on a Lenovo laptop and it doesn't work. If the account has administrator privileges, you have to have to have the password to overwrite it.
Did you ever find a way to get past the password on the leveno?
Having a issue here, when plugging the USB into the locked computer it isnt booting up as yours. Also when trying to Boot via USB it doesn't appear. what am i doing wrong ?
Awesome method, but i think you confuse it a little. Anyone would go ahead and try to reset immediately the pass for the account used and not the admin account. It wdnt be a problem wd it? it seems the tut above it is for people with virus in the comp that needs clean up.
Thank you so much for such a valuable video sir. I don't know words to thank you. But I only have a single problem. Is there any way to brute force the pins since we have only 10000 combinations? Password resetting didn't recover the pin for my case. Thank you so much again
It looks extremely helpful.
I am struggling with Dell with Win 8.1.
Unfortunately the tool can't find the windows partition. Just the whole disk. With Macrium Reflect I can see all of the partitions including the one with windows.
Any tip?
loot at my recent post...
copy offline the following files to another computer, reset then put them back... (don't forget to back them up first by copying them into a backup folder or something)
c:\users\UserNameToBeReset\NTUSER.DAT
c:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM
c:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE
c:\Windows\System32\config\SECURITY
c:\Windows\System32\config\SAM
c:\Windows\System32\config\DEFAULT
Am I right in saying, if this is an online account on windows 10 that tool won't work?
Thanks a lot it really worked for me.
Thanks...Saved my life!