Resetting windows passwords

15 May, 2011 / tom / 1 Comment

I had to reset the password of an account on a system running windows 7. There is a wonderfull linux live CD to do the job really easy.
Go to http://www.sysresccd.org/Download and download the according ISO image. Burn it and boot your windows machine.

After sysresccd has booted mount your windows partition:

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

Change directory:

cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config

In there you should find a file named SAM.
List users by running:

chntpw -l SAM

Clear password:

chntpw -u  SAM

Chose 1 to clear the users password.
Write this changes to disk by pressing Y.

Taddaaa. Reboot. Easy as can be.

I presume that you do have some basic linux know-how. e.g. how to find partition types. If you do have problems doing this leave a comment.

#linux#windows