Windows password reset?

[dieselrealtor]

Going through all my old machines that have been retired over the past 15 or so years. Several I have forgotten the password, would like to check them for photos/etc if possible.

Short of a format to erase, is there any way to recover/reset the password on Windows 95,97(?),XP, 7, etc?

Planning to sell/trade all this stuff in near future.

 

[Gaffer]

What I used to do is just pop the hard drive out of the "locked" system and pop it into another system. This will let you see everything on the drive. You could also remove any data (photos, files, etc.) before putting it back in the original system.

I am assuming that none of the systems you are describing have encrypted drives.

To reset the password, we used to boot the system with Linux and used some sort of tool to reset the admin password. It has been way too long for me to remember the exact details on this method.

Ron

 

[cbhausen]

I’m in the same boat and I’d like to recover my old files without reviving the HDDs if possible because these are laptop PCs.

 

[snapping turtle]

My computer guy has opted to setting on the computer rom, put the ISB drive as first boot device. stuck in his thumb drive, booted to it and set the password for admin to password1! In about a minute. So it is possible and that one was windows 10 pc.

I don't know exactly how it works but it seems pretty common thing IT guys know how to do.

 

[dieselrealtor]

No encrypted drives (to my knowledge).
Several of these are laptops.