{"id":1380,"date":"2014-03-13T23:30:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T03:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idlenot.com\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2014-03-14T17:56:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:56:00","slug":"how-i-lost-my-admin-password-and-survived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idlenot.com\/?p=1380","title":{"rendered":"How I Lost My Admin Password and Survived"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started simply enough<\/strong>. I started up Windows Vista and when the logon screen appeared I clicked on my avatar. I was not using a password so I expected to immediately see my familiar desktop (nice country snow scene with key icons centrally placed) appear. That did not happen. Instead I was greeted with a message that read “Profile Service Failed the logon<\/a>“. What was that all about?<\/p>\n

I found that I could logon to my wife’s desktop but that did not help much. Sure, I could find the programs I wanted and run them; but, that took a lot of work. I prefer to have everything in an orderly arrangement on my desktop. If I want to activate the interface to a ham radio I just click on the Ham Radio Deluxe<\/a> icon that is front and center. If I am going to review photographs and possibly make changes to them, all I do is click on the big ‘eye’ icon for FastStone Image Viewer<\/a>. No longer; my familiar territory was gone. What to do?<\/p>\n

Google<\/a>, of course. I put the error code in Google and quickly learned that there is a registry file that holds all the details of my desktop appearance. Apparently the file somehow became corrupted. No problem. The registry is so smart that it makes a backup of my file (extension ‘.bak’). All I needed to do is to carefully replace the corrupted file with the backup file through some name switching. I proceeded to do so. I got as far as changing the file extension on the corrupted file at which point the Vista security system asked me for my administrator password. I generally leave the admin password blank and so I just hit “OK”. Not good enough. The computer insisted that there was a password. Unfortunately I had no record of it.<\/p>\n

This is where my memory gets a little murky. For some reason I decided that I should have a password to my desktop. Possibly the creation of one would help me regenerate the Profile Service file. So, I created a password for the account and it took. I may have been in Safe Mode<\/a> when I did this. Now I could type my password at the logon, hit enter, and then get the annoying message again. Nothing accomplished. I then went back to trying to change the registry file and still got a request for my administrator password (my account is the administrator account). I put in every password I had a record of. I believe that I even put in the new logon password that I just created. The system just laughed at me. I tried to restore the computer to a previously saved\u00a0restore point<\/a>. That failed. What next?<\/p>\n

I decided to find a program that would retrieve the lost admin password for me. I settled on a program called Ophcrack<\/a>. It required me to copy the program as an image (ISO) file to a DVD<\/a>. At first when I tried to download Ophcrack the computer insisted that I needed my admin password (User Account Control <\/a>interruptions) to do so. Of course the whole point was that I did not have the password. I tried to close down User Account Control (UAC) but could not because, right, I did not have the admin password. Finally I was able to get Ophcrack\u00a0from a different site and somehow avoid triggering UAC. Next I needed a program to help me save Ophcrack and its Table files <\/a>(files that contain password data sets) to a DVD as an image file. That took several trials and ruined DVD’s. Finally I was able to boot from the Ophcrack disk.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This black screen scrolled by when Ophcrack began. It stalled with my fancy video card.<\/p><\/div>\n

All kinds of data began to scroll through a black screen. It was working! Then a color GUI<\/strong> (graphical user interface) screen appeared with several choices. Before I was able to choose what to do the screen went blank and stayed there for 2 minutes, 4 minutes, etc.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The version I used had 4 options. It passed by too quickly to choose when I had my fancy video card installed.<\/p><\/div>\n

I tried a couple of times with the same result. Back to Google again. It seems that not all video cards support this program. I yanked my video card and reactivated the onboard video. That worked. I ran the Linux program. Immediately I got the error ‘tables failed to load’. I thought they were on the disk? I checked. They were. The program was not finding them. Eventually I downloaded tables separately and put them on my wife’s desktop (remember, I can’t see mine). It took some time to figure out how to tell Ophcrack\u00a0where they were since it did not use the directory structure terms I was used to.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This is one of several screens available for loading tables and running the password crack.<\/p><\/div>\n

When it finally worked<\/strong> it showed my admin account and several ones that were ‘deactivated’ (I didn’t do that!). There was my admin password. It was the same password I had just chosen for my logon. Now I was really confused. I thought I had tried that one?<\/p>\n

Back to the registry. Still locked out, password or not. I rebooted in Safe Mode. Now I found that my password was accepted (no more ‘try again, stupid’ messages) but none of the changes I attempted would work, including modifying the registry.<\/p>\n

Desperation filled me. I had to think of something new. OK, what if I disable my antivirus software and boot in Safe Mode? Will that work? I tried it. That helped. I was able to logon to my desktop, although it was only partial with none of my regular icons or background. It was a minimal one. Progress! I entered the registry but before doing so I right\u00a0clicked on the program name (registry) and chose “Run as Administrator”. The computer did not yell at me! I renamed the first registry file. I hit ‘Enter’. It saved! Oh my God! I continued with the recovery of the .bak file and exited the Registry. The final boot that followed took a long time but everything was back to normal.<\/p>\n

I am not sure which change finally allowed me to get back in control as the administrator. I did learn a couple of things though:<\/p>\n

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  • Make sure you write down the administrator password.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Create at least two administrator accounts so that if you are locked out of one you can use the other.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Create a ‘Password Recovery Disk’ so that if you lose the password you can still get into your account and make a new password.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    I am sure there are errors in the above description of events. I was frazzled and did not document every step. I just wanted to get control back! But, hopefully my experience will help someone else to either stay out of trouble or get out of it when it happens.

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