I have been tasked with checking out Grandma Shelton’s pc. There have been LOTS of family pictures scanned to it, but no one has the password to the local account.
Anyone have a password cracker for win10?

And yes, I can probably get the data off w/o the password, but the family wants to be able to use the pc afterwards.

If you have not tried to see if there are other accounts (and perhaps an admin account with no password), you might get lucky.

Press CTRL ALT DEL

Click on "Switch User" and see if there is a user "administrator", if so, see if it will log in without a password.

Or download and burn a bootable DVD of "Hirens PE".

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Be careful you don't click on any "ads" and download any crapware in the process of perusing Hirens site.

No other accounts, unfortunately.

I have an old copy of Hiren’s, guess I need to download it again and see if it’s been updated.
Thx.

If you can get to a command prompt, you can activate the hidden admin account in win 10. This account does not have a password.

Type at the command prompt and press the enter key when done:

net user administrator /active:yes

I believe the hirans boot CD has a way to get to the command prompt.

Use OPHCrack. I've used it for years to crack passwords. Plus, it's free.

look here => https://ophcrack.sourceforge.io/download.php

Try the grandkids' names.

quote:

Originally posted by ridgerat:
Try the grandkids' names.

Ha! Grandma Shelton was nearly 101. She had three kids (they are all still alive, oldest just turned 80), each of them had three kids, most of them had three kids......

I would just take the hard drive out and hook it up externally to another computer. If the drive wasn't encrypted, you should be able to just search the hard drive for pictures and documents as needed. Then just put a new drive in the old computer and reinstall windows 10 with new accounts so it can still be used.

Just take the drive out and hook it to another computer.

quote:

Originally posted by hudr:

quote:

Originally posted by ridgerat:
Try the grandkids' names.

Ha! Grandma Shelton was nearly 101. She had three kids (they are all still alive, oldest just turned 80), each of them had three kids, most of them had three kids......

Well that's only 39. Actually 40 once you consider the person name " ".
Yes, that's a blank.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

...

Well that's only 39. Actually 40 once you consider the person name " ".
Yes, that's a blank.

And "password"!

6 Best Free Windows Password Recovery Tools

I've used either the Offline NT Password and Registry Editor or Trinity Rescue Kit several times in the past.

N.B.: The two I used did not recover passwords, but allowed you to delete them, giving you password-less logins. I never tried them on MS-Win10.

quote:

Originally posted by PrinceAliFabulousHe:
Just take the drive out and hook it to another computer.

Link

This, get a usb based external drive docking station, they are not expensive under $30, remove the drive, attach to another windows pc and you'll be able to get to the data, one you get all the files off, you can reformat that drive with a fresh win 10 install for others to use.

At least do this before you start trying to crack the password and end up with a messed up drive...

Once you have the data secure is the time to go after the password.

^^^

This IS the easiest way. Then when you're done, put the drive back in the computer with a fresh install of windows.

Did you try "guest" ?

Try "joshua" - but don't start playing Global Thermonuclear War.

+1 on pulling the drive out & hooking it up to another computer using an USB external drive enclosure or SATA to USB adapter

Thx for the suggestions, folks.
I got it done with the new version of Hiran’s CD. They have really made some improvements since last i downloaded it.

Just so y’all know, not my first rodeo with this sort of thing...
But this was a somewhat special instance.
It used to be hooked to a corporate network, then went home with an employee, then got upgraded from 7 to 10, then got a gmail account tied to the local account, then had several different people using it over the last five or six years.

Anyway, I will probably still suck the data off, but I wanted to see if a new user profile would help any.

But I do appreciate the suggestions. I’ve learned that sometimes a different set of eyes can shed new light on a problem.

quote:

Originally posted by 4x5:
Try "joshua" - but don't start playing Global Thermonuclear War.

No, no, no... Pencil

you shouldn't use the word cracker in your title

depending on whom you talk to, that could either be racist or cultural misappropriation...