| How to reset administrator password on Windows using EBCD |
(23 Sep 2008) - There is a new article in this topic using a newer tool which is more recommend than EBCD. It is PC Login Now. The EBCD tool is no longer maintain by author anymore. To see the newer article, visit How to reset administrator password on Windows using PC Login Now.
Introduction
Last week, my friend told me that he forgot administrator password on his computer and asked me if I knew some way to solve the problem. I heard that there are some ways to reset password so I tried search on the Internet and found many tools and software that can reset password. Finally, I have ended up with EBCD (Emergency Boot CD) which is a useful tools that can reset password and also be your emergency CD in case of system failure. I have test this tool can reset password Administrator and also other account on local system on Windows XP and 2003 Server R2.
Note: You should have experiences on Windows. If you don’t have any background knowledge, I suggest you consult your Administrator before do this. I won’t responsible in any failure or damage if you using this tool.
Step-by-step
- I recommend you to review all steps before you configure on real system. In this example, I’m going to reset password Administrator on Windows 2003 Server R2 which was installed on first IDE drive(c:\).
- Download EBCD (Emergency Boot CD-ROM)
- Extract and run makeebcd.exe. It will automatically create image file (EBCD061P.ISO) for burning to CD.
- Burn the file in step 2) to CD.
- Boot the computer with CD that you’ve just created. You will see the menu as the figure below. Select (5) NT password for editor (Linux-based) by type ‘5′ (with on quote) and press Enter.
- Press Enter to continue.
- Press Enter again if you don’t keep Windows on SCSI drive or type ‘y’ if you want to load SCSI driver.
- Now select which partition(drive) that contains Windows system. You can press Enter without answer to accept the default value in bracket []. In this step, the default value is [/dev/hda1]. This is partition in Linux format but you can ignore the detail if you have Windows on C: which is the most cases.
- Press Enter again to accept value in bracket[] again.
- Press Enter.
- Now, it’ll show the change NT password menu. Press Enter to accept value in bracket [1] (Edit user data and passwords).
- Select a Username you want to edit. By default value is Administrator which the user that I want to set in this example so I can press Enter without enter any value.
- Enter new password for Administrator. I recommend to set to blank by type ‘*’ and press Enter and change it to something later when you logged in.
Note: I have tried set some password(not blanking) in this step but the password wouldn’t work when log in but the blank password works fine.
- It will ask your confirmation. Press Enter.
- Type ‘!’ and press Enter to go back to change NT password menu if you finish change password.
- Type ‘q’ to quit.
- It lists the things that you’ve done. Type ‘y’ to confirm save those settings.
- Type ‘y’ again and press Enter to confirm copy settings back to your Windows.
- You’ve finished reset Administrator password. Now let test by reboot your PC and log in with a blank password!.
- Type your user name and password.
- Login with a blank password succeeded!.
- Now you can change your password as you like.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:47 am
This worked great!
THX
-Lenniex
February 14th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 14th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
this was fucking the dogs dodas
February 15th, 2008 at 9:02 am
in step 7 there is nothing appearing in bracket []
when i press enter it KEEPS ON SHOING THE SAME MESSAGE.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am
To gurwinder,
Does the line is “Probe for SCSI-drivers” similar as the figure in step 7?
If yes, it ask to probe for SCSI controller. If you don’t have SCSI, you can type ‘n’ for skip probing for SCSI.
If no, what does the message on the line?
February 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
WAT ABOUT VISTA ?? WHETHER IT WORKS WITH VISTA ALSO…
PLS HELP…
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Sorry, I haven’t test on Vista yet.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
i’ve create image file on another pc. It appears that EBCD061P.ISO file is in WinRar type. Do i need to extract before burn or just burn EBCD061P.ISO file only. One more, can i used EBCD061P.ISO that have been extract from another PC.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:50 am
You can burn the .iso to CD. No need to extract before and you can use the cd on any PC. You can burn by using Nero or UltraISO or any burning software.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:59 am
hi linglom,
can all the above steps be done on a win svr 2003 having ntfs filesystem partitions?
thank you.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Yes, the example above is on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise with NTFS.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:39 am
i stucked in step no 8 above. the default value of my server in bracket is [] ie no default value. then i pressed enter and noticed that there were no partitions detected. so,how do i solve this? thanks
Now select which partition(drive) that contains Windows system. You can press Enter without answer to accept the default value in bracket []. In this step, the default value is [/dev/hda1]. This is partition in Linux format but you can ignore the detail if you have Windows on C: which is the most cases.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
To Nik,
Is your system on SCSI drive? or some RAID?
It may need to load driver on the previous step (7) to see the partition. If it is on normal IDE or SATA drive, it should be visible.
Are there any error message on the screen?
March 13th, 2008 at 9:34 am
linglom,
it is scsi drive. in step no 7, i choose ‘y’ to load scsi driver from the cd but it cannot be found. the error message was “…major input output number…” something like that.
please advise.
thanks.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Sorry, I never use EBCD on SCSI drive before so I recommend you go to the forum of this program at http://www.ebcd.pcministry.com/ and post your problem there. May be you get someone that could help you.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I have a problem, step 7
I have win serv 2003, partisions found on disc-there is nothing.
Posible partitions, I tried all of them, none works.
I tried probe for drivers- no luck.
Any clues guys?
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Does Windows OS resides on SCSI drive? May be it couldn’t find the correct driver for SCSI controller.
If you don’t sure what the problem is, I suggest you try to follow these steps on pc that has OS on IDE or SATA disk to see if you can pass this step.
May 26th, 2008 at 5:15 am
So, I’m having trouble with this disc…
I get to boot the disc, and once I select option ‘5′ and hit enter, I freeze at “uncompressing linux…ok, booting the kernel”
any ideas?
May 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I think that problem may be from the disc. Try to boot the disc on another PC to see that the problem persists or not.
June 1st, 2008 at 9:01 am
Im stuck on step 10. i press enter and it keeps coming back to the same thing. any one know why? im running it on windows 2000(not sure which ver. as its a hand me down)
June 2nd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
To RMDan,
Is there any error message after you press enter?
Is there any default value on step 10? I mean the text in bracket[], it is [sam system security] in the example figure.
June 18th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
WOW>..this directions were right on for EBCD0.6. GOt to love it.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:15 am
ty very much
July 13th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Have you by any chance tried this on a Windows 2003SBS (Dell Poweredge - SATA drive)
Cheers
Shay
July 13th, 2008 at 11:51 am
It should works but that depends if EBCD can access your disk or not. Most of the problem is that when boot with EBCD (or other resetting password tools like this), it doesn’t have the driver of the disk because some may setup a software RAID, Mirror, etc. that EBCD don’t have the correct driver.
You have to try yourself but generally I think it will work fine.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:40 am
I went through all steps fine but still unable to log on. I use window xp
July 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Did you reset the password to blank password? I have tested with blank password and it’s work fine.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:25 am
I tried making an ISO Cd using Nero and also ImageBurn. The system hangs after hitting 5 for NT password editor,
August 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
[...] How to reset administrator password on Windows using EBCD | Linglom’s Blog Your post has me interested in finding a viable tool for password recovery. EBCD looks promising, it’s free, u create a CD and this page has step by step instructions with Pictures of the computer screen. Just a suggestion, I am by no means saying it will or won’t work, Nick [...]
August 4th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
To Rich,
It could be the problem from the image file itself. Try to download the file again and re-burn the CD again.
September 11th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Hi, I used the EBCD software to recover the lost password for my Windows 2008 server running on Dell R200. The problem is when I select option ‘5′ to reset password, the uncompresses linux and tries booting the kernel and then there is just a blinking cursor on the screen. My take is the system hangs..any idea what I might be running into?
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:21 am
[...] different software tool to reset administrator’s password. You can view the older post at How to reset administrator password on Windows using EBCD. Currently, the tool “EBCD” is already deprecated which means that the author [...]