Vista - lost admin password recovery

i need some assistance on how to get into the only admin account cause the password has been forgotten. I'm using windows vista home premium and its an Acer laptop

Welcome Sinnerboy,

Sorry, but the news is not good. Here is a summary of what you can try.

If security were not good, the password would be meaningless. This is what I found.

Forgot Password - I Forgot My Windows Vista Password - Is There A Way To Find My Lost Password

We have this possible remedy from our tutorial selection. Try method 3
Reset User Account Password

OK I've got the CD burned and all but how do i change boot sequence to boot with the CD cause it wont load the CD on start up

Hi Sinnerboy,

I really hope that my sugestions help. I know what a headache this must be for you

In any event, the next part, should be easy. You have to change the BIOS boot order. Here you go.

Thanks a lot for the rep. I hope that it is truly earned after you are done.

How to change the boot sequence in the BIOS

Sinnerboy, its late, so I will not be around for a while. If you have problems, just post. I will not just leave you. Worse case scenario, I will have to say that I do not know the answer, but you have many unseen friends here, you are in good hands.

thanks but ummm ok ive got it running but with ophcrack v3.3.1 and it says that there were no hashes found is that saying basically that it cannot find my password or is it saying it found possable but cannot show them? because i have a feeling one of my tech guys changed my password. but anyways i can get ophcrack to work but cant get the passwords out of it mind making me a tutorial on how to do it. it would be greatly greatly appriciated.

Hi,

Your best bet is Method Three "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD" I have used this in the past, and it removes the password, rather than changing it, which has a vastly improved success rate. I wrote someone a message once with advanced instructions on its usage. I will try and dig them out for you.

Richard

ok well care to explain this the table is saying

"Tables found:
/mnt/hda/tables/xp_free_small

no partition containing hashes found ! !"

ok well niemiro have u managed to find them yet?

Hi,

Follow Method Three here: Reset User Account Password

Once you have burnt you CD, boot into it (you may have to change your BIOS settings) and then follow the instructions in the walkthrough provided by the site. I have included a copy of this walkthrough as a word document. I have also listed a summary of which buttons to press. Follow these instructions exactly. This will work from NT to Windows 7, and so many options do not apply to Vista, and you will do much damage in running them.

Here is the summary (and included at the bottom of the document) :

Enter, Select Windows partion using numbers then enter, enter, 1 then enter, 1 then enter again, enter account name then enter, 1 then enter, ! then enter, q then enter, y then enter, n then enter

I would recommend following the walkthrough, and only using the summary to check you have not missed a step. I would recommend printing off the walkthrough, though you could have it on another computer screen.

Richard