Recover a Lost Windows Password
First of all, to recover your password you’ll need local access to the machine and a bootable floppy disk or cd with the NT File System (NTFS). Insert the disk or cd on the computer and now its time to boot it.
If you want to you can use Petter Nordahl-Hagen’s set of linus based bootdisks with NTFS support, get them from here: NT Password and Registry Editor.
Boot the system using the NTFS drivers.
As long as the bootable cd (or floppy) that you use has support for NTFS so it can run the the utility software you will use to recover the password, you are free to use any bootable disk you want.
Obviously, if your file system is not NTFS, then use a bootable disk with drivers for your file system.
Time to recover your password.
We recommend you use one of the following utilities:
OpenWall’s John the Ripper with Olle Segerdahl’s NTLM patch, it runs on MS Windows, DOS or Unix.
L0phtCrack,which runs on MS Windows and Unix.
LCP, which runs on MS Windows.
If you want to reset your Administrator’s password, you can use a tool like “chntpw”, you can find it in Petter Nordahl-Hagen’s bootdisk package (see above).
If you reset the administrator’s password you will gain access to the system but if you recover the administrator password you’ll have access to the system without alerting the real sysadmin, and since you’ll know the sysadmin’s administrator password, you may even get access to other machines.
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