Re: [9fans] First-timer help

[Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com>]

On 7/18/05, arisawa@ar.aichi-u.ac.jp <arisawa@ar.aichi-u.ac.jp> wrote:
> this remind me that I forgot win2000 password.
> I decided to reboot the computer and reinstalled the OS.
> I didn't know how to rescue my data.

There is a fun trick you can do on NT/2K/XP (though it's less
effective on XP) if you have a Win2K installation CD.

If you've forgotten/lost the local administrator's password (and other
administrative accounts are otherwise unavailable), you can use the
Win2K installation CD to boot to a recovery console.  The XP
installation CD correctly prompts you for the local administrative
password, but the 2K CD does not, even for XP installations.

You cannot easily change the administrative password from the recovery
console, but you can modify certain files.  The trick is to rename the
default screensaver (logon.scr usually), and just copy the command
prompt in it's place (cmd.exe), then reboot and wait.

After x minutes the system will happily give you a command prompt with
system-level privileges.  If the machine is on a domain, the machine
itself still has a domain account, and any network share that allows
Everyone read/write access is available, so you can map the share to a
drive and backup your files or take other measures to recover your
data. The command line FTP client would work just as well, I suppose.

USB support seems to be limited, though.

-Jack