help please, ds has forgotten his password for his laptop

[Loshad]

Ds1 has a laptop running xp, he changed his password to prevent me getting into it!!, however he has forgotten the password and we can't work it out. He's the only user, and the administrator. Is there any way past the login screen please?
cheers

If my dp changed a password to stop me getting into his laptop then forgot it, I certainly would NOT offer him any assistance in getting into it.

Just sit there and laugh at him and then wonder why he felt the need to keep you out of it anyway....

This is the official info on the subject Forgotten password

There are other ways which you can find out about if you google, but I'm not going to recommend anything myself as you can do a lot of damage if you don't know what you're doing & I haven't tried any myself.

Maybe someone who has will be along soon if you keep this bumped.

www.johnbradbury.com/windows-xp-password-recovery/

No idea if this works and as RustyBear says you have to be careful, but maybe if all else fails

it was my teenage ds flibberty, not my dp (certainly would laugh at hime1)
have tried one method by googling and got totally stuck - arrgh, am not geeky enough for this
will try greyriverside's site - thanks

it was my teenage ds flibberty, not my dp (certainly would laugh at hime1)
have tried one method by googling and got totally stuck - arrgh, am not geeky enough for this
will try greyriverside's site - thanks

ops sorry about double post - ds trying to see my login name for here [humpf]

ok this seems a useful thing to know so I am testing this out myself.
Have downloaded the CD image and put it on a CD (just a little smugness at having BE Unlimited and downloading 500mb in 7 mins )

Have booted other PC from the CD and its working on it now

Oh and it's already found my password. Admittedly it wasn't a very long password, but I thought it was going to take an hour.

That makes the whole password thing a bit of a joke doesn't it

My DS says:

This sounds complicated, but does work and hopefully isn't too bad - Do try to follow it through!:

1. Ask him if he rembers that: -It contains 14 or less characters -It contains only letters and numbers

On a second PC, download this:link

This is an iso file, which needs to be written to a blank CD. Download a bit of software that can burn ISOs, probably worth keeping afterwards anyway.

ISO recorder
Right click the ISO and click Copy image to CD, when you have the blank cd in the tray, and tell it to burn.

Put the newly written CD into the tray of the pc with the lost password, and reboot. It's should eventually load with a window saying "ophcrack". You should be able to just click on launch, and it should start going!

After 5-10 minutes, your password should be cracked; It's VERY quick!
Write down the password, and reboot and log in. Then make sure he doesn't forget it again!

DS says:
Greyriverside, what were you using?

Also, I found this guide which is a very similar guide
Ophcrack Guide

Sorry, missed that one!

Hmm ds locking you out of pc, I'd worry even more!!! Why don't you think up the new password, keep it secret, then he has to ask mummy's permission every time he wants to log on
that should teach him...

absolutely fj, he knows that
complete hopeless idiot, am currently downloading the iso thing you're talking about to my flashdrive - how do i get his laptop to boot to that when i turn it ? {useless person emoticon}

Milliways, as it happens it's the same program 'OPHCrack', I just arrived at it from a different place.

Loshad, You're going to have to burn it to a blank CD I think using the ISO recorder link that Milliways found.

It should hopefully boot automatically, although if it doesn't:

Press F2, F8 or F10 when the computer is booting (It should say at the bottom something like "Press F2 to enter BIOS")

There is no mouse in this, only arrow keys! Naviage along the the section called "Boot". Now you need to change the "Boot device priority order". It should say something like "Press F5 to move up, F6 to move down", and move the CD to the top.

Flibbertyjibbet: My DS is reading this and ROFL at your comment re keeping password secret from a child. He is 12, and typed my previous posts (and various other answers to Geeky Questions on my behalf), as that stuff is his hobby

so i can't burn it to my memory stick - it has just failed - 33 mins into download and saying 98% complete. i don't have a cd burner on my computer - bl**dy teenagers, good job i love him.
was hoping a bigger memory stick would be the answer.

DS says:
Whereas it is possible to boot from USB drive, it's very difficult and often deletes all data from the usb stick!

Without a CD burner you're pretty stuck, unless:

Its XP home edition, (though sometimes professional works). If the login screen is not the welcome screen, where you type the username, try:
username:
Administrator
password blank

This account does not display under the welcome screen, and not many people know about it to do anything about.
Hopefully this works!

I'm not sure you're going to be able to boot from a USB drive anyway, loshad - I don't think it's very common for computers to be set up to do this.

is it really obvious that my ds's are not old enough to know what a computer is yet and that their mum is of the last pre-pc generation
No doubt I will have no clue what goes on in my house in a few years!

oh ratty rats - looks like the jobs totally kna then, thanks for all your help everybody - loads of knowledge, and much appreciated.

OPHCrack does work great. Do you have anyone local you can ask to download and burn it for you.

Ok I got Ophcrack working on my usb flash drive

Creating a bootable USB Ophcrack

It was quick and easy except for one misunderstanding on my part when it said copy a folder contents and I copied the folder

being able to make it bootable will have other uses for me aside froom ophcrack so I'm pleased with this.

So loshad, you should try the guide Greyriverside found. It's a pretty nice guide. Unless, when you said it failed, it was because it ran out of room.

Warning!
Just a small warning really, but having tried the Ophcrack thing and being very pleased with it I wiped the USB Drive clean. However when I rebooted the PC with it plugged in it still attempted to boot, but now couldn't find its files. I believe this is because there is a change in the Master Boot Record which format doesn't touch.

This would only be an inconvenience I suppose and perhaps there is a simple way to put that right, but none of my tools would work on a USB drive. I finally downloaded HDDGuru's Low-Level-Format-Tool and that put it back to how it was originally.

Possibly a useful utility to have around anyway.