Locked out of Windows Machine

[thommon]

Hi everyone,

First time here.I'm typing on a ten year old lap top w/screwed up keyboard so I'm going to be short and to the point.Gfriend locked herself out of her Win7machine.I need a solution.Either a distro on a key/cd running live that I can down load hard drive, or away to break Admin password. I am a complete noob as far linix butI know how to set up iso on key. Im pretty lost here - bad enough that tomorrow she is ordering another off Amazon until we get this figured out. Sorry about the typos.

[jayd512]

Hello there.

Here's a method that I have used twice on a Vista machine: Change or Reset Windows Password from a Ubuntu Live CD - How-To Geek

And another that looks promising, but I've not personally used: http://systembash.com/content/how-to...d-a-usb-drive/

[thommon]

I can find later versions but not 9.10. I know, I know, if it worked 9.10 it'll work with 11.10 - but will the instructions be the same? Remember, I just lost my (windows) eyes and I'm feeling around for the light switch in a linix room.

[jayd512]

Yes, the instructions will be the same.

[thommon]

2011-11-27_091637.jpg

I wonder if I could do a hard reset back to factory defaults. Will that remove the admin password?

Unless you are will to lead me by the hand, I'm stuck on the first screen. Everything is cryptomenian to me.

I tried to post a bigger image but it is to large and I can't post a link because I don't have enough posts. I get to this point with Linux and then I buy a new windows computer. I figure that I have lost three months worth of work because I didn't stick to the back up plan. And I really don't have time to learn a new language that seems to require 36 hours a day tweeking to learn and keep it running.

[thommon]

I've downloaded 3 live versions, used three different iso burners, and made six different tries at a live cd and used 2 different usb stick programs to try 4 different times to make a live copy of an operating system that will run outside the hd environment and it sticks on a Dos command and just hangs there or gives an error about not finding something and then I have to do an hard shut down in order to get out of it. The only success that I've had is an old copy of ubuntu 6 that wants to install - is not live. I am not that stupid that I can't make a fg copy of a live cd.

[oz]

Hello and welcome!

From your description in post #6 above, it sounds like you might be making your disks bootable yourself, but you don't want to do that because the ISO burning process takes care of that step automatically. Just guessing, though. You'll only get a dos screen if you try to make them bootable yourself.

[jayd512]

I agree with oz. Sounds like a mis-step in the burning process.
Here's a page that should give you the needed steps for successfully burning a bootable disc: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ins...ll-cd-dvd.html
The key is to 'Burn as an Image' with whatever burning software that you are using.

[thommon]

You are right and I'm not sure what I've been doing wrong yet but seemed to get a good flash drive after re-reading. Been up to long, I'm going to get some sleep but these are the errors:
Tried to go into graphical but seemed to crash back into terminal(all text)
Printed on the screen:
There are file system -specific -0flags
Cannot mount/dev1loop/cow

I went back through my old cds (live versions) of older Ubuntu, Gparted, and Suse 10 - everyone I had downloaded and burned to cd myself and everyone of them mounted; all except for Gparted could not see the windows partitions.

[jayd512]

Were they not detected in the output of fdisk -l?

Also, and I'm not certain if this method works, but I found a link that might help. See here: How do I reset my forgotten administrator's password for Windows - Microsoft Answers