Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
It's common not to get all information such as the administrator password with a used computer. There are a couple of approaches to taking ownership.
My dad bought a computer from a yard sale. The problem is that they forgot to take off the password. I'm logged in as a user but not an administrator so I don't have admin privileges. How do I become an administrator.
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This is frightening for a couple of reasons.
It's not you who should be scared, though, and we'll get you into the computer quite easily.
It's the previous owner that should be concerned, since it's clear they didn't take a few important steps prior to giving away their computer.
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The problem for the original owner is simply this: they've given (or sold) the computer ... and all the data on it.
How do I know this? Because it still boots into Windows. It's clear that they did not take the extra step of securely deleting all the data on the hard drive prior to giving it away. We hear stories all the time of secondhand computers that are sold, or even discarded, only to find that there's a tremendous amount of data, often sensitive, personal data still on the machine.
They may think that they've deleted the files they care about, but as I've discussed in many articles in the past, there are often sensitive remnants in other places, and even deleted data can sometimes be recovered.
So lesson #1 is for whomever sold the computer in the first place: securely erase your data, or you run the risk of the computer's new owner getting access to all of it.
Now, let's get access to that machine.
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There's a right way, and a ... I'll call it an "OK" way.
The right way is simply not to try. Get a Windows install disk - perhaps one even came with the machine - and reformat and reinstall Windows, from scratch.
It's the "right" way for two reasons: you're not even going to try to access or recover the previous owner's data, and more importantly, you're not going to suffer from any infections or malware left behind by the previous owner. Let's face it, that person didn't know enough to securely erase their data, so what faith do you have that the machine isn't loaded with viruses and malware? Reformat and reinstall really is the right thing to do.
But as it so common ... people are curious, or "adventuresome" (perhaps a synonym for foolhardy?), and want to run or see what's on the existing hard disk - perhaps (hopefully) before they reformat and reinstall.
Fair enough.
As it turns out it's very easy to gain access by downloading a password reset tool, burning it to CD, and booting from that CD. I've covered it in a previous article: I've lost the password to my Windows Administrator account, how do I get it back? As I've also said before, if you have physical access to a machine, then the machine is not secure. That works in your favor here, as you can quickly reboot into this password reset tool and reset the administrator password to the machine.
And you're in.
Just be ... sensitive ... to the data that you might find there.
Article C3698 - April 4, 2009
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Hello. I found this article about administrator very interesting. When we bought our laptop some years ago, without knowing what was happening I filled in all details asked for and put in a password. All of our family members have their own details but none of us know what the first password was. (I am in my 70's and not a computer person). All of what you have written seems very difficult to do. Is it?
Posted by: Dominic Keily at April 8, 2009 7:24 AMThe "right way" is the safest way - I mean what would you do if the PC had a key logger or FBI-arrest-and-jail-you-forever porn still on it? During a "right way" reinstall you will probably need the Windows Product Key - if there's no Genuine Label on the PC (its on the case, right?) then run Produkey or Magical Jelly Bean to get the in-use key for the re-installation. Good Luck and buy your boyfriend a beer to do the installation!
Now that we've said that you can skip a lot of trouble by doing a "right way" disk wipe and then installing Knoppix on your laptop (which is free of legal encumbrances and has lots of the newest drivers) and is much faster on startup. Or use an Ubuntu Live CD if its a plain pc! Yay Free Software!
Posted by: clippership at April 8, 2009 1:20 PMi agree with rahul, booting on safe mode will work.
Posted by: grace at April 11, 2009 4:21 PMbut pls i would like to know how to access the CMOS setup in a laptop that is passworded and if you say i should reformat, i can't access the CMOS setup to boot from CD. so pls what do i do?
I've used the Magic Jelly Bean Key Finder method and then a clean install. That's the cleanest method. Using a computer that's been running for a few years is bound run slower than a freshly installed system.
On the other hand, it's possible that the computer you bought has other useful software that you might lose with a fresh install (the Jelly Bean also gives you the MS Office S/N).
One thing that works on 95% of older XP systems: At the log-in window his ctr-alt-del twice. A log in dialog will come up instead of log-in icons. Enter Administrator as the user name with no password. Ive gotten into dozens of computers that way. Vista and XP SP2 and above fixed this bug.
Posted by: Mark at April 13, 2009 7:54 AMSystem rescue CD from www.distrowatch.com has a utility to change windoz passwords...most live Linux distros will give you access to the windoz drive...
Posted by: Hugh E Torrance at April 15, 2009 10:47 AM