Lost Admin password

[mortus]

Now I feel really anal, I have a win 2k pc and I can log on under a user account that only has user access, but I forgot the Administrator password. I see the account and tried everything that I possibly could think of and I have used in the past. Is there any tricks or am I going to have to just reimage this thing?

[Creatures]

reinstall! repair wouldnt hepl because it wants the pass too, so deinstall (format) win2k (HD) and reinstall, no other way! (or maybe someone here knows a hack but that would be illegal so, sorry!

Creatures

[J-Excel]

There are ways to get into WinXP. Not sure about 2k. But I wouldn't reinstall until you've thouroughly googled it.

http://www.ntsecurity.net/Articles/I...ArticleID=9527

from a legit website

[mortus]

I found some utilities that can do it or companies that will, but they all want money, heh. I would rather just reinstall then pay someone to correct my error.

[DVNT1]

There are ways to fix that problem.

It is very easy if you just have FAT16/32 instead of NTFS. Otherwise it takes a few more steps.

In either case, you basically delete the c:\winnt\system32\SAM file and reboot. Then the password is gone.

You may want to Google on delete SAM passord to find other details and references (I would post a direct link but my Interent connection is very bad at the moment).

[J-Excel]

Deleting the SAM file is OK if he doesn't have any encrypted files/folders. Otherwise he needs to hack it.

[Creatures]

?? so easy? i'm confused!

Creatures

[mortus]

what is the name of the file I have to delete? (I don't have any encrypted files, it is pretty much bare bones.) Is it just called sam or is there more to it such as an extension?

mortus do a quick search on google
there are tons of sites about it

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...g/storpass.asp