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SystemRescueCD
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Date : 19th November 2017

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Creating the System Rescue CD

Before you can do anything else, you’ll need to download a copy of the System Rescue CD
and burn the ISO image to disc. For this task, I prefer the simple ImgBurn utility, but you are free
to use whatever burning application you prefer instead.

If you are using ImgBurn, click the Write image file to disc button…

Click the File button near Source and then pick the ISO file, then click the Burn button near the
bottom. That’s about all there is to it.

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Download the System Rescue CD from sysresccd.org

Resetting Your Password

Now that you have your boot CD, you’ll want to boot from it, which will take you to this very
informative prompt, with some basic instructions on how to use the CD.

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Use fdisk -l to list partitions

The first thing we’ll want to do is mount the hard drive, using this command. (Note that you
might not need to use the –o force argument, it’s only really for when the system didn’t shut
down correctly)

ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows –o force

You can use the df –m command to verify that the drive has been mounted and that it’s the
right drive. Note that it’s mounted on /mnt/windows at this point.

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Now you’ll want to change directory into the Windows/System32/config directory inside of your
windows installation. For mine, the full path was something like this, but it might be different on
yours:

cd /mnt/windows/Windows/System32/config

Once you are in that directory, you should see that there is a SAM file, which is where we’ll
want to change the passwords.

To change the password we’ll use the chntpw command, and it’s most useful to use the –l
argument first to list out all the usernames in the file.

chntpw –l SAM

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Now you can add the –u argument with your username, which will end up being something like
this command, except you’ll want to replace geek with your username:

chntpw –u geek SAM

This will present you with a wizard type screen:

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I’m going to assume that you want to set a new password, so just type “2” at the prompt, add
in your password, and remember to use the “y” key when prompted to save.

At this point your password has been changed, so you can issue the reboot command to restart
the computer (should take the disc out of the drive)

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And now you should be able to login with the new password:

Note that I tested this technique on both XP, Vista and Windows 7 with good results.

From

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