Knoppix to crack a Windows password

[duah55]

I have searched this topic on google and here-Knoppix to crack a Windows password

but not clear how to do it

I somehow blacked myself from my newly istalled WK pro install,now it wont accept my password

I booted from knoppix live cd-found these files, which contain password info
"winnt/repair/sam"

"winnt/system3"

but how do you open these,it wont open with open office writer or Kwrite

[Cuddles]

duah55,

Even if you manage to open these files, they are most certainly encrypted. Which means you will be looking at really strange ASCII characters, of those, some may be viewable, and some may not, depending on the font used in the program you are viewing them in.

With an encypted file, you have to have a "key" to unlock the characters that they represent - which is probably maintained by the operating system. If I know Microsoft, thus any version of Windows, the encryption is probably 128 bit, or possibly even 256.

I have been able to "decypher" an encrypted file, but only when I knew what the data actually was, and also knew that all the data files by a specific program used the exact same encryption. The program I was working on was an old Fantasy Role Playing game, and I wanted to know all the possible functions a character could do. In the case of this programs encryption, it saved a number in front of the text that was used in (ASCII) value to shift the remaining letters (ASCII) value by that amount, left.

But, this form of "encryption" was seriously less than an encryption that would be used in an operating system.

Good luck figuring out your password encryption, you are going to need it - if you can manage to view the file.
Ms. Cuddles

[garyng]

I don't think files under Windows are encrypted, so just copy whatever is important to you then reinstall Windows. The SAM(at least the password stuff) however is encrypted and it is almost impossible to crack, so why bother.

You can even just install another copy of XP/W2K to a different directory and in general can open the files.

[nmcphillips]

Before I reinstalled Windows I would try deleting the password files. What have you got to lose?

[duah55]

I cannot DELETE these 2 files under knoppix,thats the only way I can see to reset passwords, to blank

there must be a way,knoppix is promoted as a emergency repair solution?

[tjoff]

It's not possible to retrieve your original password (exept if you brute force it and if you used a password with many letters that could take months-years).

Although it is possible to overwrite the password with a new one.
I've forgot how to do this but google might give you the answer.

But since you have a newely installed windows wouldn't it be easier to just reformat?

[eco2geek]

With a few qualifications -- this has nothing to do with Knoppix; your best bet would simply be to reformat and reinstall; I can't vouch for whether this works or whether it will simply trash Windows, having never tried it; I hope I'm not contributing to something illegal, immoral, or fattening --

-- with all that said, there is a boot floppy/boot CD named the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor that might do what you want.

[nmcphillips]

Inorder to delete the files you would have to make the hard drive writeable. Right click on HDA1 and enable write to.

[bast]

To mmcphilips: You can only write if the hd partition isn't ntfs...

[nmcphillips]

I was of the understanding that the newest version of Knoppix could now handle NTFS.