Where are windows 7 admin passwords stored on hard drive

[debonemo]

i have a problem in which is i have two hard drives on my computer both with windows 7 professional installed, now my main hard has gone on the blink and wont load up unless in safe mode, due to this i just hit f12 and swapped drive but i can not remember my password to log on and i am the only user with admin rights on the second hard drive, in saying this i can log on as a normal user, also i can log in my first drive as a admin user and search the second hard drive.
my question is can i access a file to change my password as the admin user or make the user i can log on with into an administrator.

Thank you any advice would be great.

 

[vrumor]

No one here will help you bypass a password for any reason. Either remember it, or ask the person you took it from. Pretty simple.

 

[debonemo]

Thank you for reply i will just have to re-install the OS and see if this corrects my first hard drive or as you said try and remember my password for second hard drive

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

A computer professional can change or clear the admin passwords of any Windows NT family PC from NT3.5 to 8 in about 5 minutes
providing you can convince them you own the PC.

this may be quicker than re installing Windows from DVD

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[johnbl]

i have a problem in which is i have two hard drives on my computer both with windows 7 professional installed, now my main hard has gone on the blink and wont load up unless in safe mode, due to this i just hit f12 and swapped drive but i can not remember my password to log on and i am the only user with admin rights on the second hard drive, in saying this i can log on as a normal user, also i can log in my first drive as a admin user and search the second hard drive.
my question is can i access a file to change my password as the admin user or make the user i can log on with into an administrator.

Thank you any advice would be great.

local passwords are stored in the SAM database, they are encrypted. It is not a secret. Windows Security Accounts Manager = SAM. Generally stored on the local machine at
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config

if your machine was a member of a domain with active directory a person with network admin rights can log on to your local machine and reset the password. Or reset it in active directory.

if the machine can not contact a controller for the domain you can still logon using a cached copy of domain credentials if you have logged to that machine before (depending on certain settings that block this)

if it was not a member of the domain you have to log on using the local accounts database.
For a local machine if you can log in, try to start cmd.exe with admin rights
If you have the rights to do that you can use net.exe to create the local accounts you need to repair your machine then take ownership of your files on the other drive.

if you need to repair SAM take caution, the security descriptors will be unique and you can not just drop in a new SAM database and expect it to work.

your problem will be fixable when you can start cmd.exe as a admin

none of this is hacking.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

This topic has been closed by SR-71 Blackbird