Hacking into my computer

[Le Pacha]

hi everyone,
I got a problem with my Win2K server, just fired the computer guy and now i need to access the computer.
What I have is another computer running WinME and another one running WinXP.

Is there a way i can create a bootable disk with either systems wich can help me login to Win2K?

[RenegadeKing]

Well I just learned this from hpro, but if you slave the 2k harddrive in the XP machine, go into C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\ and delete the file called SAM with no extension, and then put the drive back in the 2k machine, it will reset the administrator password to nothing so you can log in.

[Le Pacha]

what about the formatting? will the 2k drive be readable from the XP? can it be done on the WinMe?

[KHT]

If the server is a domain controller though NTDS.DIT is used intead of SAM to manage accounts.

I never tried deleting NTDS. May not have a happy ending.

[Le Pacha]

what do you mean domain controller?

[RenegadeKing]

It most likely won't work in the WinME machine. WinME can't read NTFS, and that is probably what the drive is formatted with.

[Le Pacha]

ok, will see what i can do when i go to work..

[David_Jones]

WinME (or any other boot disk) should be able to FDISK, and then reformat (with, say, FAT32) regardless of what file system has been used on any given partition.

If you really want to wipe a HDD clean, then boot from a disk, run FDISK, remove all the partitions (including extended and any primary partitions), and create a new partition structure to suit.

Once you have done that, re-boot, and format the partitions as you like with the appropriate file system.

If you install WinME (for example), I believe it will actually ask you if you want to format the primary partition when you run setup, so you actually only need to FDISK before letting it go.

That will destroy any and all information on the HDD so be sure you want to do that before going ahead!

David.

[Le Pacha]

Certainly formatting and wiping clean the HDD is not what I want.
need to access the data on it, it contains a software that is being specially developed for our business, the only remaining copy, plus archived information which, if not recovered, will have to be re-entered from their hard copy.

[Statica]

This thread is now closed - its difficult to keep it open reasons are here: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...737#post369737
(the answer should be obvious so far anyway)

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You know, instead of hacking, you could call the guy and ask him what the password is; unless he parted on real bad terms. I am sure you should use policies such as "returning of keys" etc for terminated employees .. so why not remember root passwords.