[sllug-members]: OSS tools to fix WinXP partition

[Tristan Rhodes]

The original poster did not ask about cracking passwords, but the reply from Lars prompted me to 
share this information.

If do not need to know the previous password, the easiest way to simply reset the password is using 
a tool like Lars suggested.

The Offline NT Password Editor
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

However, if you need to retrieve the original password the most efficient way to crack Windows 
password encryption is using rainbow tables.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table

This live CD can crack many passwords, if they are not really complex.

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

If you need to crack a complex password, you should dump the password hashes and bring them back to 
a PC that has a HUGE rainbow table (64 GB table).  The larger the table, the more complex of 
password it can crack.

http://rainbowtables.shmoo.com/
or
http://www.freerainbowtables.com/index-rainbowtables-tables-lm.html

Tristan Rhodes

Lars Rasmussen wrote:
> David,  you can use dd to copy a working MBR off of another working XP
> machine, but I do not suggest it.
> 
> Boot to recovery console off of some XP installation CD media and run
> FIXBOOT & FIXMBR.
> 
> If you need to crack the admin password use this OSS CD:
> NT Password Recovery Bootable CD ISO
> http://www.dmzs.com/tools/files/password.phtml
> http://www.dmzs.com/ftproot/security/password/NTRecovery-DMZS.iso
> 
> -- 
> Lars
> 
> On 12/29/06, David J Iannucci <fyyht at punchcutter.ml1.net> wrote:
>> This weekend I'll be going to try to fix a family member's WinXP
>> computer that is refusing to boot.  It looks like the MBR is corrupted
>> or something(?) because on boot it says something like "system disk not
>> found - insert in A:"
>>
>> I know about ntfstools, and I'll try to run ntfsfix on it (from
>> Knoppix), but I'm not very familiar with what's available on Knoppix
>> (or Linux in general) to do this kind of repair.
>>
>> Does anyone have a suggestion for something I can try?
>>
>> Thanks and Happy New Year,
>> Dave