Bypassing Logon password (to restore data)

Hey all, long story short I need to retrieve data and perform a format & winXP reinstall on a machine for which nobody involved knows the logon password.

The administrator password has been changed from the default (tried no password, "password", "administrator", "admin", ect.). There is also another logon which has been enabled and password protected.

The guest account has been disabled.

Since I need to retrieve data I am not in a hurry to use a SAM editor (which I read can destroy the file system), unless someone credible recommends a particular piece of software.

However, I do have a SATA/IDE to USB adapter. Problem is I have had trouble finding all the files on a previous data retrieval using the adapter. (Maybe customer was wrong about what was there.)

Also, if I have to choose between the two aforementioned methods, should the IDE to USB adapter still be able to access the data in the event that use of a SAM editor goes wrong?

Sorry for packing so many questions into one post...

Any recommendations?

All input welcome & appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hiren 10.0 - 10.6
Active Password Changer

 

Try Puppy Linux for recovery. It is small, fast and can boot from a CD or USB drive.

As far as resetting the admin password, I've had good luck with this.

 

Thanks a lot. My questions regarding the admin password issue are answered. I do not have time to use the software yet, hopefully tomorrow.

If anyone knows where I can find testimony/correspondence regarding the vantec SATA/IDE to USB Adapter for data recovery, I would appreciate the direction.

Thanks again.

 

Hello,
If you are talking about the adapter here, I can say that it works very well. The only problem I had with it was trying to get data off of a very old 2.5 drive. You do have to be careful handling the bare drive.

 

Yes, that is the one. I guess the person was mistaken about the pics she said were on the drive.

I suppose it could be that I did not do a correct search of the drive. I basically searched for all files with the extensions that photos usually have. (jpg, gif, ect)
Maybe I don't know all the file types that could be photos.

With the search function came up with nothing, I manually looked through all the folders that were likely to contain pics.

Any tips on using the adapter to recover data would be very much appreciated.