How to Reset/Change/Delete the Windows Account Password

Hello all,

Have you ever faced the problem of forgetting your computers password??

If yes, then what major steps you take for recovering your password?

Repairing/Reinstalling windows or simply reformatting your PC!!!

Believe me if you are repairing or reinstalling the windows operating system again then you can no longer use your settings and software previously installed.

And you may lose some important data stored in the partition.

·     On the other hand, formatting your hard drive simply restores it to a new clean state with no data in it (As you all know).

Then what to do in-case you forget your computer’s “password”? Don’t worry you can easily get access to your computer without knowing the password also. All you need is to pay attention what I have written in this article.


So, let us begin with learning a basic concept on “How windows operating system stores its password”. Windows operating system stores the password of its users in file named as “SAM.log” which is maintained by the utility of windows “SAM.exe”. SAM generally stands for “Security Accounts Manager”. SAM stores users’ passwords in a Hashed format (in LM hash and NTLM hash). Since a hash function is one-way, this provides some measure of security for the storage of the passwords. Also the SAM files hides themselves as soon as a user logs in into a computer.

You may read about SAM Files here : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Accounts_Manager

 As I said, “Windows stores its password in hashed format inside the SAM files”. So, think if we have the access to change the contents of the SAM files or simply delete the SAM files then we can easily change/delete the user password for our PC or others PC too. But on the other hand I had also said that windows stores the passwords in Hashed format (so it is probably impossible for Human’s to decode the particular hashed algorithm as only Microsoft knows how the algorithm works), so we can’t change the contents of the SAM files.

But what if we simply delete the SAM files as this can delete the current password. Can we delete the SAM files while using the computer? The answer is simply “NO” because the SAM files hide themselves soon as the user log in into the computer.

So then how to change/reset the password now? As, I’ve told the SAM files hide themselves when the user logs in. So, if we delete the SAM files at the boot time or Using some other Storage device(such as another Hard disk as the primary hard disk, then we can easily access the SAM files and delete them too)

 

Let us first try to delete the SAM files using an additional hard drive. Below are the steps and the requirements for performing this operation:  

NOTE: I'LL USE THE NAME "PASS_HDD" FOR THE HARDDISK HAVING PASSWORD AND SIMPLY "HDD" FOR THE OTHER ONE.

Requirements: You need an additional hard disk with installed operating system.

So Let us start with the first step,
Step 1 : Make the connections of the HDD in your computer along with the PASS_HDD connected also.

STEP 2 : Start your computer and come to the BOOT MENU, use your PASS_HDD as a secondary hard disk and your HDD as primary hard disk and then save the changes and exit from the BIOS menu by pressing F10 and clicking on “YES”.

Step 3 : After the computer starts, open that drive of PASS_HDD in which the operating system is installed.(Drive containing Windows files)
(We mostly use C:\ drive for OS installation, However you have to select the drive in which your OS is installed)

Step 4:  Change your current  Directory tree to : “C:\WINDOWS->SYSTEM32->CONFIG”

Step 5: Identify files named as SAM.exe and SAM.log and then simply delete both of them.

 

Step 6: Turn off your PC and then remove your HDD and boot your computer with PASS_HDD only and boot it as default primary Disk Drive.

 

You will be happy after you see the starting, there will be no passwords anymore..!!



The above case generally helps us when we have an additional Hard drive. But, What in case you don’t have any additional Disks??
You may choose the second way to resetting/deleting the account password i.e. deleting SAM files on the boot time.

To delete the files on boot time follow the below rule:

Boot up with DOS and delete the SAM.exe and SAM.log files from “C:\Windows\system32\config” in your hard drive using the command prompt. Now, when we boot in Windows NT, the password of the account will be blank viz. “No password”.

NOTE: This solution works only if your hard drive is of FAT kind.

However there are so many tools available online on internet using which we can easily remove/reset the windows password, few of which are written below:

1)Ohpcrack

2)Kon Boot

3)Cain & Abel

4)LCP

5)John the Ripper

6) Hiren Boot


NOTE: YOU WILL  FIND MANY RESULTS ON INTERNET FOR THE QUERIES ON  "HOW TO USE THESE TOOLS".

This ends my article on “How to Reset/Change/Delete the Windows Account Password”. Hope you liked the article. Do give your suggestions in the comment box.

Thanks J