Offline Windows Password & Registry Editor, Bootdisk / CD

I've put together a CD or USB Drive image which contains things needed to reset the passwords on most systems.

The bootdisk should support most of the more usual disk controllers, and it should auto-load most of them. Both PS/2 and USB keyboard supported.

More or less tested from NT3.5 up to Windows 8.1, including the server versions like 2003, 2008 and 2012. Also 64 bit windows supported.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
If password is reset on users that have EFS encrypted files, and the system is XP or newer, all encrypted files for that user will be UNREADABLE! and cannot be recovered unless you remember the old password again If you don't know if you have encrypted files or not, you most likely don't have them. (except maybe on corporate systems)

Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and the version history below before emailing questions to me. Thanks!

How to use?

Please read the walthrough (now a bit outdated, sorry) and the FAQ before mailing me questions

If you have the CD or USB, all drivers are included.

Overview

  1. Get the machine to boot from the CD or USB drive.
  2. Load drivers (usually automatic, but possible to run manual select)
  3. Disk select, tell which disk contains the Windows system. Optionally you will have to load drivers.
  4. PATH select, where on the disk is the system? (now usually automatic)
  5. File select, which parts of registry to load, based on what you want to do.
  6. Password reset or other registry edit.
  7. Write back to disk (you will be asked)
DON'T PANIC!! - Most questions can usually be answered with the default answer which is given in [brackets]. Just press enter/return to accept the default answer.

The walkthrough and instructions is now on its own page! but is quite old.. hope to make a new one..

What can go wrong?

Well. Lots of things, actually. But most of the problems is of the type "cannot find" something. And then nothing happens.

Also, see the FAQ for help with common problems.

For linux-knowledged people, you may do things manually if the scripts fail, you have shells on tty1-tty4 (ALT F1 - ALT F4).

Bootdisk history

2014-02-01

2011-05-11 2010-06-27 2008-08-02

2008-05-26

2007-09-27

2007-09-23

(earlier history removed)
9705xx

Download

Note: Some links may be offsite.

CD release, see below on how to use

Previous release: The files inside the USB zip are exactly the same as on the CD. See below for instructions on how to make USB disk bootable.

Floppy release (not updated anymore), see below on how to use them

Previous versions may sometimes be found here (also my site)
NOTE: Versions before 0704xx will corrupt the disk on VISTA/win7/8!

NOTE THAT THE BOOTDISK CONTAINS CRYPTHOGRAPHIC CODE, and that it may be ILLEGAL to RE-EXPORT it from your country.

How to make the CD

Unzipped, there should be an ISO image file (cd??????.iso). This can be burned to CD using whatever burner program you like, most support writing ISO-images. Often double-clikcing on it in explorer will pop up the program offering to write the image to CD. Once written the CD should only contain some files like "initrd.gz", "vmlinuz" and some others. If it contains the image file "cd??????.iso" you didn't burn the image but instead added the file to a CD. I cannot help with this, please consult you CD-software manual or friends.

The CD will boot with most BIOSes, see your manual on how to set it to boot from CD. Some will auto-boot when a CD is in the drive, some others will show a boot-menu when you press ESC or F10/F12 when it probes the disks, some may need to have the boot order adjusted in setup.

How to make an bootable USB drive

  • Copy all the files that is inside the usbXXXXXX.zip or on the CD onto an usb drive, directly on the drive, not inside any directory/folder.
  • It is OK if there are other files on the USB drive from before, they will not be removed.
  • Install bootloader on the USB drive, from command prompt in windows (start the command line with "run as administrator" if possible)
  • Replace X: with the drive letter the USB drive shows up as (DO NOT USE C:)
  • If it seems like nothing happened, it is usually done.
  • However, a file named ldlinux.sys may appear on the USB drive, that is normal.
  • It should now in theory be bootable.
  • Please know that getting some computers to boot from USB is worse than from CD, you may have to change settings, or some will not simply work at all.

    How to make the floppy

    The unzipped image (bdxxxxxx.bin) is a block-to-block representation of the actual floppy, and the file cannot simply be copied to the floppy. Special tools must be used to write it block by block.

    Or from unix:

    dd if=bd??????.bin of=/dev/fd0 bs=18k

    How to make and use the drivers floppy

    Other places to go for password and disk recovery

    Bootdisk credits and license

    Most of the stuff on the bootdisk is either GPL, BSD or similar license, you can basically do whatever you want with all of it, the sourcecode and licenses can be found at their sites, I did not change/patch anything.

    The "chntpw" program (password changer, registry editor) and "reged" is licensed under GNU GPL v2. COPYING.txt

    Stuff I used, big thanks:

    Back to main page

    140201, pnh@pogostick.net