Terms of Use For FixedByVonnie

By proceeding to access fixedByVonnie.com, you expressly acknowledge, and agree to, all of the following:

fixedByVonnie.com is a personal website and blog owned by Security Plus Pro LLC, which is being presented for informational purposes only. The views on this website are solely those of the website owner (and not those of any employer or of any professional associations affiliated with the website owner).  Any views expressed in this website and any information presented on this website, or in any of its blog entries, should not be relied on for any purpose whatsoever other than as the personal opinions of the website owner.  The website owner expressly disclaims any and all liability for any information presented on this site.  The owner of this website and its blog posts shall not be held liable, and shall be held harmless, for any errors or omissions in any information or representations contained in this website, or in any of its blog entries.  The website owner also expressly disclaims any liability for the current or future availability of any such information. The website owner makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this website or which may be found by following any link on this website. The website owner shall not be held liable for any losses, injuries, damages, claims, or causes of action, from the display or use of any information on this website or in any of its blog entries. If you use the information on this website, or on any of its blog entries, you do so solely at your own risk.

1 proven trick to try if you forgot your Windows password - fixedByVonnie

1 proven trick to try if you forgot your Windows password

Yes, it happens to all of us doesn’t it?  In a moment of exuberance, in the highlight of delight, at the apex of excitement… you attempt to login to your Windows box after months of inactivity, and well you can’t.

Access denied!!

And what makes things worse is you told yourself this would never happen to you.  Also, since there’s no external DVD or CD-ROM drive, you don’t have an easy way to boot up a recovery drive.

You’ve blazed through all known passwords… you’ve even tried cracking your own password but alas! You just can’t get in and you’re about to lose your mind.

In this quick tutorial, I’m going to show you one proven trick for gaining access to our beleaguered Windows machine.  And the best news is it’s easier than you think.

So there are a couple of tricks you can try to get into your box such as downloading the Offline NT Password Editor and completely blowing away your password.  As long as you have a valid local account on your computer, you can zap the existing password (even if you don’t know the old one) and start over without reformatting your box.

You could also try cracking your password but that’s not very effective.  The most reliable fix is to create a Live Linux USB drive from a friends computer and then plug that thing in your computer so can boot to that.

In this guide, we’re going to use Kali Linux to pull this off but you could actually use any version of Linux.  For example, many people use Ubuntu to do this but I prefer Kali.

In order to make the Live CD first lets first make sure we have everything in order:

  1. Kali Linux ISO
  2. UNetbootin
  3. A USB thumb drive with at least 4GB of space (be prepared to wipe it clean)
  4. Boot to Kali
  5. Run chntpw
  6. Unmount and login!

1. Grab Kali

Alright, the first thing we need to do is grab the Kali Linux ISO.  Simply go to the Kali Linux downloads page, click the ISO and let it download. It doesn’t matter if you grab the 64 or 32 bit versions, but I prefer 64 bit because it runs slightly faster on machines that have more than 4 GB of RAM.

Kali Linux

2. Snag UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a free Windows program that lets you create live USB drives for various Linux distributions.

UNetbootin

When you install UNetbootin, you have two options:

  • Distribution
  • Diskimage

We want to pick Diskimage at the bottom of the application because the Kali Linux distribution isn’t included in the Distribution drop down box in UNetbootin.

So click the Diskimage radio button, make sure ISO is selected and then click the little button with the three horizontal dots to browse to the Kali Linux distribution you just downloaded.

Selecting your ISO

Now plug in your USB drive, make sure the Type at the bottom says of UNetbootin is set to: USB Drive, select your Drive and then click OK to format and create the Live USB.  As long as you have at least 4GB of space on the drive you should be okay.

Plug in the drive and select the letter

Just make sure the type is set to USB Drive and not Hard Disk or else you’ll be in a world of hurt…

3. Boot the the USB drive

When the Live USB process is completed you should see all the files on your USB drive.  It shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes to create the media.

Bootable Linux drive

Okay, so now we’re looking good.  Now we need to boot from this thing.

The easiest and most reliable way to boot to a USB drive on a PC is to hit reboot the box and then start hitting F12 like crazy.

Another way to boot from the USB drive is to press Del, Esc, F1 or F2 repeatedly during bootup so you can get into the BIOS or UEFI screen. From here you should be able to choose the Boot order.  Which key you press to enter your BIOS/UEFI screen depends on your computer manufacturer that’s why I listed so many options.

BIOS

Alright so now what?

When the box boots we should see something that looks like this:

Kali Live CD screen

4. Boot into Kali

Alrighty, now we need to mount your Windows drive into the Kali Linux environment so we can access the files there.

Pop open the terminal – this is basically the Linux version of a Windows command prompt.  Now we need to create a mount point so we can mount the Windows partition to our Linux environment.

Terminal window

Open the terminal and type:

ls /dev/sd*

We need to look for our Windows partition.  All Linux devices are located in a folder called /dev.

You might be thinking like – how is this possible?

This is because in Linux everything is a file - including physical devices.  So your DVD-ROM is represented as a file and your entire hard drive is represented as a file too.

So what we need to do is to find all our hard drives which typically live in /dev/sda.  The /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 files you see in the screenshot below are actually partitions on the hard drive /dev/sda.

I hope that makes sense.

/dev/sda

So our Windows partition lives on either /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2 – let’s mount both to see where it is

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

mounting the partitions

If this doesn’t work for some reason you can type prefix each command with sudo (this is like clicking Yes to the UAC prompt in Windows)

Alright, so we mounted both partitions into a folder called /mnt/ in Linux. Now let’s take a look inside.

Just type:

cd mnt && ls

looking at our mounted Windows partition in Linux

You could also type

cd mnt

ls

on two different lines – the && thing will save you a step though (nice little Linux trick eh? hehehe)

5. Run chntpw

Alright, so let’s CD into /mnt/Windows/System32/config and then run chntpw to see what our options are

cd Windows/System32/config && chntpw

chntpw

So we have a bunch of options

Let’s run the interactive Menu system by pressing the -i switch in that long list of options and we want to do it against the SAM file.

sudo chntpw -i SAM

Editing the Windows SAM file

Awesome – so press 1 and hit enter to Edit user data and passwords.

Then enter the hex code next to the user you wish to change the password for.

RID column

It’s under the RID column.  Just copy and paste it and press Enter.

Resetting the password

Then press 1 to clear (blank) the user password out.

Resetting Windows passwords in chntpw

Hit enter and that should do the trick.

It’s going to look like nothing happened – but if you scroll up just a tad you’ll see where it says:

Password cleared!

Password cleared in chntpw!

If so, you’re on the home stretch baby.

Press q to quit the chntpw interactive screen, hit q again and then hit y to write the changes to the hive files.

2017-05-08_17-30-16

So it’s q enter

q enter

y enter

6. unmount and login

Now let’s unmount the mnt folder and reboot:

Change back into the root directory and type

cd / && sudo umount /mnt

Just keep in mind the unmount command is umount NOT unmount. That messes’ a lot of newbies up –

umount in Kali

Now reboot and you should be able to login to your Windows box without a password.

Windows 10 login screen

bizzam!

Desktop without a password

The Bottom Line

Alright so there you have it – I just logged into my Windows 10 box even though I completely forgot the password.

Just to review we grabbed the Kali Linux distro.  So I chose Kali because I use it on my laptop but you could have picked Ubuntu or something else.  The reason I picked Kali is because it comes with chntpw built in so I didn’t have to download it.  If you have ubuntu you can grab chntpw by running:

sudo apt-get install chntpw 

Then we installed UNetbootin so we could create a bootable Kali distro.  We pointed UNetbootin to the Kali ISO, booted from the USB stick into Kali, mounted the Windows share, ran chntpw and then rebooted the box and logged in!

So if this post helped you please leave a comment! I really want to know – also if you have questions leave a comment too – I like comments

About

Connect with Vonnie on Twitter

Posted in Linux, Windows Tagged with:
  • Curtis

    Great trick! I also came across another trick – sticky keys method, and it also worked great and you can do a password reset using windows installation disk.I’ll test your trick on my computer when I have time. Thanks!

    • Cracked Pc Software

      photoworks key Thanks This blog is really informative. It helps me a lot really interested. Admin, you are doing a very well job.You may interested in mine

      clé activation photoworks Are you searching for the Latest News Today? Our original top news will help you stay up to date about everything that’s happening in the world. We will make sure that staying up to date with the Latest News will be worth your time. Washington Sources is the recognized world leader in health news and provides real-time financial market

  • Skygazer

    That’s great! Could this cause an issue though with encrypted files linked to this user account?

  • Bogumił Bruzda
  • That was new trick to know! Gonna use it from now on! Thank you!
    Windows 7 Activator 2020

  • Nertony Bornelus

    I always appreciate learning something new! Thanks for sharing it!
    Pinball Arcade

  • wheeler williams

    iExplorer Crack is the ultimate manager for iPhone, iPad, and iPod, and allows you to easily transfer music from any iPhone, iPod, or iPad to a Mac or PC and iTunes.iexplorercrack

  • holland kinney

    DllKit Pro Crack allows you to repair DLL file errors and adjust the performance of your PC. dllkitpro

  • robles conner

    PhoneRescue Serial Key is an excellent data recovery tool that helps to recover lost or deleted data for your devices like iOS without any obstacle.phonerescuecrack

  • wagner peterson

    Driver Genius Keygen is the best software for Mac and Windows users to update their drivers in a professional way. It is full of professional features and makes them good tools.drivergeniuspro

  • oliver stanley

    Avid Media Composer Activation Key is a software application for video and film editing.avidmediacomposer

  • house owen

    Logic Pro X Crack is an astounding instrument for music stock. It likewise has the entirety of its data about creating and another form of data.logicprox

  • kidd melton

    iTools Crack Keygen is a little application that furnishes you with an interface to deal with your iOS gadgets by means of your Windows PC.itoolscrack

  • lancaster raymond

    Save Wizard Crack is useful and easy to use. They use and copy their excess Play Station 4 to a large USB.savewizardd

  • perry albert

    Bandicut 3.5.0.599 Crack is the fundamental programming for cutting, separating, and joining recordings.bandicutkeygen

  • ayers frye

    4K Video Downloader 4.12.5.3670 key is advanced and very easy to use Video Downloading Software. It allows you to download any video from the internet.4kvideodownloaderd

  • reynolds battle

    Powerful and useful Sausage Fattener Crack plugin for archived music. It is a great plug-in tool to keep your music on file.sausagefattenercrack

  • smallstrick land

    The Latest Version of NTLite Crack Free Download is a powerful Windows configuration and customization tool. It allows you to create an optimized version of Windows.ntlitecrac

    • Cracked Pc Software

      photoworks pro crack Thanks for post this blog,is magnificent software for greater results of your task. It provides the best features to its users.Also it has a simple and easy to use interface. I’ve been using it for a long time and it is the best one indeed.You can Download it free of cost.

  • barnes wright

    Native Instruments Massive v1.5.5 Crack is one of the most proficient and broadly utilized applications in the field of the age of sound.nativeinstrumentsmassive

  • burges osborn

    Malwarebytes Crack is reliable application to remove malware. This Anti-Malware helps detect and remove all types of malware such as worms, Trojans, rootkits, rogues, spyware, from your computer.malwarebytescrack

  • rowe richard

    Adobe Photoshop CC Crack is a complete solution for professional images. It has a great idea to implement new intuitive tools to create graphics, films, three-dimensional projects.adobephotoshop

  • charles branch

    Auslogics Driver Updater Crack is a software program to update all drivers on your PC with just a few mouse clicks.auslogicsdriverupdater

  • alison john

    SmartDraw Crack can be a very potent device for generating demonstration images. As a result of the application, it could generate complex graphics, a variety of calendars, diagrams, layouts, and much more.smartdrawcrack

  • Iftalia

    Hi everyone the piece of writing is truly fruitful in support of me, keep up posting these articles or reviews.
    Here is the link of Latest Designer:
    https://softserialskey.com/mastercam-crack-free/
    Download it Free And Enjoy!

  • battle stephenson

    Excellent post.
    I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed!
    MiniTool Partition Wizard Crack is feature-rich partition magic designed to optimize disk usage and protect your data.
    Gmail Hacker Pro Crack is the second most viewed app on the web after hacking into your Facebook account. By hacking a Google data history, you will not only reach Gmail but also prominent partners,

  • battle stephenson

    Extremely helpful information particularly the last part 🙂 I care for such information much.
    WiFi Password Hacker Crack is a tool that can hack your WiFi password. This hack tool works efficiently. This hack tool can complete the job in seconds with a 100 percent guarantee.
    WinZip Crack is a data compression tool. It is used to archive the data in the best possible way. Provides complete protection and security for your data.

  • battle stephenson

    I was looking for this certain information for a very long time.
    Thank you and best of luck.
    Twixtor Pro Crack is a great and very powerful software that can be used to boost or slow down image sequences very quickly.
    Movavi Video Editor Crack allows you to download third-party software that is not required for video editing but is required.
    Voice Attack Crack is a voice changer, a great entertainment program with great graphics. Save the modified voice and set it as a ringtone, notification, or alarm. Ignition feedback is always welcome and supported!

  • 123Imama
  • Albertine Torres

    I really appreciate your effort Keep it up
    Apowersoft Video Download Capture

  • jozi mac

    Nice post
    key4crack.com

  • Dawson Holman
  • Mike

    I really appreciate your effort Keep it up, Instagram pva accounts
    PVA Instagram accounts

  • volveris is a blog site ( spanish word for “I return”) dedicated to give practical tips for small businesses, graphic design fields and also about internet self-marketing.

  • However, there are no firm plans set in place. That’s why you’re reading this if you visit this page – to find out what’s happening (rustte).

  • The chances of returning to the pontiac 2022 are zero as GM abandoned the Pontiac brand in 2010, but the iconic muscle tone and car plates are still high among General Motors fans.

  • Nexus 4 Crack is a ROM synthesizer for FL Studio that can provide high-quality sound that can be competitive with other top-quality hardware. Additionally, reFX Nexus 4 will allow you to access hundreds of sounds to create electronic music. Amazing pianos and, in the end, it’s a producer’s heaven.

    Nexus 4 Crack
    Arturia Pigments VST Crack
    Adobe Photoshop Crack
    BlueStacks Crack

  • Arturia Pigments VST Crack
    brings you the best elements ever found in a software instrument, allowing you to create pioneering, exciting, and deeply personal sounds. Putting everything in front of you, Pigments lets you fully express your creativity in a way never seen before on a software instrument.

    https://crackedplugs.net/arturia-pigments-vst-crack/
    https://plugintopc.com/nexus-crack/
    https://crackist.com/adobe-photoshop/
    https://crackbrand.com/bluestacks-crack/