Reset Windows Password with Ubuntu Live CD

Posted by snix on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by snix
Published on 2013-11-24T17:18:40Z Indexed on 2014/08/21 4:32 UTC
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password-recovery

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live-environment

A friend brought me his PC with Windows Vista to reset the user password because he didn't use it for a long while and forgot his password.

So I found a tutorial on how to reset the password by using a Ubuntu Live CD and the software chntpw.

After I installed this software I mounted the SYSTEM partition by opening it with the file explorer. It is now available at /media/SYSTEM/

The tutorial says I have to open the file /windows/system32/config/sam with chntpw and reset the password with

chntpw -u USERNAME sam

After I did this it didn't show me any errors. So I unmounted the partition and rebooted the PC with the installed Windows Vista. It is still locked with the old password.

Did I do any mistakes or is there an other way to reset the password?

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