Boot Up Password Problem

thats not a lot of information to go on, with more information it might be easier to find the problem or the solution to it rather.

im sure youve already tried this, but make sure caps lock is turned off.

i also assume that this is your user account password you are speaking of?

it could be possible that the account has gotten corrupted somehow, which would suck. do you have another account that you can log in from? what you may need to do is somehow log in and create a new account, and save any files or data from that account.

can't really give much help unfortunately, the operating system and version would help .. ur data is still in there tho, and pretty likely its saveable.

 

Kon-Boot

 

That last update from Microsoft had some issues for quite a few people. MS has recommended un-installing it.


Can you get in as "Admin" and roll back to a time before the update?

 

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

you can download Ophcrack, it is a live CD (it runs completely from the CD and will attempt to guess the password. I have had success with it on Windows Vista recovering a forgotten password, never tried it in Win 7. If the account is corrupted tho and that's the problem, then this probably still won't work, as even the "right" password is still gonna be wrong to the operating system.

doing a filesystem check might be a good idea, probably won't be successful but at least you'll have tried it, and it might rule that out. putting the harddrive in a different laptop is going to result in the same results though, as when it boots that harddrive it will ask you for the account password. I would suggest using the other machine to create a bootable live CD/USB stick (you can use Unetbootin to do this http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/). If you have a Windows 7 install disk, you can try booting from that, usually these disks have some useful tools (usually you can do a filesystem check with these, the command is chkdsk <filesystem_path> .. use the flags /r /f to scan for bad sectors and attempt to recover ex. chkdsk c: /f /r) and if you can get a command prompt or anything you can at least copy your important files.

other than that, don't reinstall the operating system (or anything else that will destroy data) until you have backed up any important information. I would suggest a small 'live' USB linux, such as puppy linux http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm. Using the live linux disk to get access to the filesystem of your harddrive and copy anything important over to the backup media of your choice.

and always use a seperate user account with limited privilages for normal work, and only use the root, or administrator account when when necessary to install updates, device drives, and software, that type of thing. that way changes to the system can only be made when you are sure they need to be made and not accidentally done in an unintended way

good luck

 

ophcrack looks easy

im in the middle of trying it out...got as far as getting the right iso image burned onto a thumb drive then booted up the locked laptop and fell asleep before i could finish


(trying to unlock a small windows 7 notebook i bought for $5 at a recycling place)

 

Are you talking about the windows password?

Or the actual boot password, which, if present, would be requested at POST? If that, it sometimes will be erased if you unplug the computer and pop out the CMOS battery for little while, depending on your computer.

 

im fairly certain both Bilby and I are trying to bypass/reset the windows password on the blue screen when it makes that weird tone sound on boot

 

im pretty sure he's talking about the windows user account password. if it's the BIOS password he can't get past, then either he forgot the password, it's an I/O problem (keyboard most likely), or the BIOS is corrupted. That last case usually doesn't happen, but if that's the case then he's gonna have bigger problems.

I would do it in this order:

1) Boot into a "live" operating system, mount the windows data partition,and copy important files somewhere safe.

2) Do a filesystem check, attempt to recover any errors/bad blocks.
If step one results in read errors because of this, save whatever you can after attempting to repair the filesystem.

3) Try to fix the problem with your user account (do '1' first incase something goes wrong at this step).
If step 2 failed, you can skip this step. If you can't save the account, see if you an make a new account
and delete the broken one.

4) If step 2 and/or step 3 fails then zap the operating system then re-install and update windows.
If step 3 was successful you can ignore this step. In the case that step 2 failed the fs-check and you find yourself
dealing with step 4, then format your partitions with bad-block checking (non-quick format) before installing windows.
This will find any bad blocks on the disk, and make sure that the filesystem never attempts to write to those blocks.

edit: the steps aren't explained in detail, or exact commands included, this is just a guideline

 

1. Get a live boot disc.

2 Mount . Boot into it.

3. your windows 7 partition.

4. Open the folder:
c:/windows/system32

5. Rename the file magnify.exe to magnify2.exe

6. Rename the file cmd.exe to magnify.exe

7. Boot into windows 7.

8. Click on the magnifying glass. You now have a terminal running at the system user.

9. type 'net user yourusername younewpassword '

10. Log into windows with your new password.

A word of caution. If you have content that you've encrypted with efs you will be shredding that content.

 

If shredding the content is a concern, you can send me your password hash and I will recover it.

$10 fee. No charge if it can't be recovered.

 

that step #6 is pretty crafty lode who really uses the magnifying glass anyway ?

u could make a symlink to cmd.exe that way u can keep it that way, and the magnifying glass always gives you a terminal?

 

windows command line:

cd c:\windows\system32;
cp magnify.exe magnify2.exe && del magnify.exe;
mklink magnify.exe cmd.exe

from linux:

mount -f ntfs /dev/sd** /mnt/win-c/ && cd /mnt/win-c/windows/system32 {where sd** is the partition on the device that has the windows data partition ex. /dev/sdb4, use fdisk -l to check}
cp magnify.exe magnify2.exe && rm magnify.exe && ln -s magnify.exe cmd.exe

edit: now ur magnifying glass gives a terminal with elevated privilages, terminal will still work as usual also. i suppose you can keep it that way if you like, i wouldn't tell anyone else tho that its like that

 

this one looks easy...and no software

didnt work for me because hp recovery manager kicked in right where i needed to click on more info...so i went ahead with a complete system recovery since i really dont care about previous owners info

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZQHK7EU3BA

 

^that's almost the exact same thing getting a shell, just a tiny bit different way of doing it by using stickykeys instead of magnify .. nobody ever uses stickykeys either

don't forget to put those files back the way they were originally unless you want to keep that behavior

 

seems way easier for Bilby to do it the video way instead of the complicated way you guys explained


pictures are worth a thousand words

 

reverse the process afterward and the filenames back to how they were before unless you want to keep that behavior permanently

probably best to start over fresh anyways spaceman, who knows what the previous user did to compromise the security of that machine

 

It was the exact same process. He opened up a terminjal and typed net user username password. The difference is he changed stickykeys to cmd.exe instead of magnify to cmd like I said.

That said, it's probably easier to follow a video.

 

I'd also like to point out his way will destroy your EFS content in exactly the same way.

The reason for this is that EFS uses the users password for encryption. For some reason.