hi all the girl next door is trying to get her laptop going after coming back from 6 months in oz, she just knocked to see if i can get her laptop going as she cant remember her password, im not even sure if you can format it without knowing the password, thanks guys take care
at what point dose the password kick in? I have a double layer, a boot password which the bios kicks in, then a windows password. You can format if its a windows password piss easy, bios enabled passwords wont allow you to by-pass and format.
if it is only a windows password, there is a good chance you can even recover data with a recovery live CD like knoppix.(you can select your language on the site) still, if it is a bios pasword, there is nothing i know that could fix that
cheers guys she said its the password when you first boot the laptop up,, would a format sort it if i put vista back on for her, if the above dont work thanks take care
A full clean format of windows (Not a restore from a backup set) would allow the setting of a brand new password, but of course any data on the laptop would be lost. But if it's the bios password she's lost then it's a different story (very unlikely, the average Joe/Jo user doesn't set these)
If it's the windows password that she has forgotten, then you could try cracking it with ophcrack or bypassing it and then changing it with kon-boot though i've nver used the second one myself so can't vouch for it. If it's a bios password than the normal way would be to remove the battery or clear the CMOS but not sure if you have acess to that on a laptop.
thanks guys for all the help ill tell her when she comes in that it will have to be a clean install of windows vista, she will be gutted as the laptop had all her uni stuff on, and she cant remember if she backed it up thanks again guys take care
as said, you will likely be able to recover a lot of that data, just be sure that after you reinstall windows you use the computer as little as possible before you attempt to recover
cheers m8 i just found out its the windows vista login screen, (which is the password she cant remember) take care
if you are going to be lazy and format it at least plug it into an external hard drive caddy and get the data off it for her. but any of those link posted above should be able to get the password
no i wont format it, only as a last resort, ive now got ophcrack, so hopfully be able to sort it for her thanks take care
When i forgot my Password in Vista RC, i went into Safe Mode, loaded up the admin user and then went into Control Panel, my User, and deleted the Password, Reboot, start up, log in, easy. Sam
ill give that a go sam, when she decides to come home, gone to her mothers, so wont be until tomorrow take care m8
I haven't really used Vista at all TBH, does it not have a default admin account like in XP?. In XP if the administrator account password hasn't been set then you just F8 after bios pick Safe Mode and as well as the user generated accounts you get the Administrator account (which is normally hidden by default), if it aint passworded then your in. I've sorted the same issue before this way for various people but only in XP. Is this girl next door hot by any chance Edit: Opps, yer what Sam said. Didn't see his post, was distracted by the You Tubez mid post
