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Forgot Admin Password!! Help!

McGRP01

beer and bikes
Feb 6, 2003
7,793
0
Portland, OR
Anyone know of an easy to use freeware ERD or like program to clear/reset an admin password? A friend of mine just got a sueed computer, but has no idea what teh windows password is to log onto it. Preferable, a program that will work with Windows2000/2003/XP.

Thanks!
 

LordOpie

MOTHER HEN
Oct 17, 2002
21,022
3
Denver
To keep honest people out, just like locks.
I really need to become dishonest... it's apparently easy and if you get caught, you only go to While Collar Prison, so at least you know you won't have to suffer the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.
 

BadDNA

hophead
Mar 31, 2006
4,257
231
Living the dream.
This isn't Riyadh. You know they're not gonna saw your hands off here, alright? The worst they would ever do is they would put you for a couple of months into a white-collar, minimum-security resort! ****, we should be so lucky! Do you know, they have conjugal visits there?
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
so, wait, what's the point of a password then?
If you don't have physical security on a machine, you don't have security. Period.

For local machines that workers and such have access to, you should have network authentication and access policies set up to protect your network and this won't be a problem.

Other than that, passwords are simply a nuisance to protect yourself from the average schmuck. Gotta secure the physical machine, first and foremost.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,227
20,004
Sleazattle
If you don't have physical security on a machine, you don't have security. Period.

For local machines that workers and such have access to, you should have network authentication and access policies set up to protect your network and this won't be a problem.

Other than that, passwords are simply a nuisance to protect yourself from the average schmuck. Gotta secure the physical machine, first and foremost.

My company would like to think otherwise. They installed some kind of software that encrypts all the data on the HDD after a computer got stolen that contained critical data. I have no doubt that it can be cracked but the funny thing is our IT department hasn't found away for us to be able to make system backups that can restore a failed hard drive when using the encryption software. Their solution was to give each of us an external HDD drive to copy all of our data on to. The external drives are not secured hardware or softwarewise. A top notch security scheme.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Their solution was to give each of us an external HDD drive to copy all of our data on to. The external drives are not secured hardware or softwarewise. A top notch security scheme.
:rofl:

So they decided the best security scheme was to relocate the important data onto unsecured easily stolen external drives instead of the more difficult-to-steal internal discs? That's fantastic!

Actually, encryption is a great way to solve the physical security issue, and a decent implementation could be very difficult to crack. The problem, of course, is that losing your key can result in complete, irrevocable loss of all data and writing the key down is as bad as no encryption.

They could probably use a program like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost to make images of the drives, encryption and all.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,227
20,004
Sleazattle
:rofl:

So they decided the best security scheme was to relocate the important data onto unsecured easily stolen external drives instead of the more difficult-to-steal internal discs? That's fantastic!

Actually, encryption is a great way to solve the physical security issue, and a decent implementation could be very difficult to crack. The problem, of course, is that losing your key can result in complete, irrevocable loss of all data and writing the key down is as bad as no encryption.

They could probably use a program like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost to make images of the drives, encryption and all.
We used to use Norton Ghost and other programs but they don't seem to work with the encryption software. I don't know much about it but a co-worker got screwed when his ghost image wouldn't work because of the encryption.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Huh.

Well it all depends on what software you're using and how you're encrypting/decrypting it, there's almost certainly a way to make it work. Since your company is unlikely to pay me for the solution, though, I'll let your IT department struggle with it :D