Recover Windows password on dual-boot machine

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

I have a dual-boot laptop, and some time ago messed up my password change. It's been a month or two, and I really ought to boot WinXP again, if only to make sure software updates are applied. There are numerous utility disks that will let you reset the admin (my user account, and AFAIK the only user account) password, and for that matter, as far as I can tell, most of them are Linux boot disks.

So because it's more friendly, and in case things like this happen again, can someone point me to one of these password reset utilities - without the boot disk. I'd just as soon install it somewhere on the Linux partition, and run it from a Linux boot. I'm just not finding it packaged as a standalone program. Obviously I'd have to either build the NTFS driver with write capablity, install NTFS3G, or some such.
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timeBandit · Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 8:31 pm Post subject:

You mean NTpasswd? (Found by googling "windows XP password reset tool linux" and reading the first few results, wherein it's mentioned.)

Caution: Some quick research suggests that for WinXP, you should only blank the password, never reset it. Set a new password after you log in to XP, if you wish. The tool is apparently a little unreliable with XP and Vista.
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ronmon · Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 10:39 pm Post subject:

What timeBandit said about blanking it is correct. I have used it a few times and it works great. It is included on the Ultimate Boot CD, which is a handy all-in-one rescue CD.
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depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

depontius · Advocate Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3509

Guess I'll have to dig up a CD and burn it. I've got the image, but was hoping to do this directly from the Linux partition. I also found a copy of "chntpw" from summer 2008, which is probably sufficient. But I have to pass it the location of at least the samfile, and possibly 2 more, and know the location of none of them, since I know practically nothing of Windows. When I get around to building the boot CD, I'll be using NTFS-3G, but just for curiousity, what's the status of NTFS-3G vs the NTFS in newer (2.6.29+) kernels?
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