Posts Tagged ‘forgot active directory password’

How to Crack Active Directory Password

November 7th, 2012 by Admin

The bane of an system/network administrator’s life is when Active Directory administrator passwords are lost or simply forgotten. For the unprepared, losing an admin password can cause extensive disruption to work flow and even business processes. Here I’m going to explain the various approaches that can be taken when faced with this problem.

There are essentially two approaches to recovering Active Directory passwords: cracking by brute force and resetting passwords. Various tools exist for both approaches. The brute force approach involves a dictionary attack against the Active Directory database (ntds.dit). There are many best well-known password cracker tools available on the net, which could be used to crack Windows local admin/user password, but they are unable to extract password hash from Active Directory database. So they are useless when you forgot Active Directory password.

However, you can easily reset the Active Directory password you’ve lost. Using a Live CD is the only option to access the Active Directory database offline so you can reset the password hash for a given Active Directory user account. Password Recovery Bundle is the right software which can help you reset Active Directory admin/user passwords quickly and easily.

Just launch Password Recovery Bundle and click on the Windows Password button, it allows you to create a Live CD/USB which can be used to boot your domain controller and reset your lost Active Directory password in just a few mouse clicks!

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How to Recover Active Directory Password with A Live CD

September 29th, 2012 by Admin

Forgot Active Directory password is one of the most annoying thing for network administrators in medium to large organizations. If the domain controller is very important for your company, then you have to find some other ways to recover Active Directory password than formatting and reinstalling the server. There are many excellent Windows password recovery software available on the internet, but none of them are able to recover Active Directory password.

Active Directory password is encrypted and stored in the NTDS.dit database. Once you’ve forgotten the password, you have no access to all your computer files. So we need to create a Live CD and use it to boot your domain controller for performing password recovery. Password Recovery Bundle is the only software you need in this tutorial.

How to Recover Active Directory Password with A Live CD?

  1. Download and install Password Recovery Bundle on another computer that you can log in.
  2. Prepare a blank CD and insert it into the computer.
  3. Launch Password Recovery Bundle and click on Windows Password button, it will display the ISO burning dialog.

  4. Choose your CD you’ve plugged in and then click on Start Burn button to create a Live CD.
  5. After you have the Live CD, put it into the CD drive of your domain controller whose password you want to recover.
  6. Turn on the domain controller and have it boot from the Live CD. You may need to go into BIOS and set CD/DVD as the first boot device.
  7. After booting from the Live CD, it will load the Windows PE operating system inside the Live CD and start the Reset Windows Password program.

  8. Choose the Active Directory NTDS.dit database, it will display a list of domain user accounts inside the NTDS.dit database.
  9. Choose a domain user account from the list, then click on Reset Password button, the program will replace the forgotten/unknown password with a new password: Password123.

Remove the Live CD and restart the domain controller, you can then log in to your Active Directory user account and recover access to all data and files on your domain controller. The Active Directory password recovery procedure is simple and fast! No need to spend a lot of time to rebuild your server.

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How to Reset Active Directory Password When You Forgot It

May 31st, 2012 by Admin

Active Directory allows Windows network administrators to centrally manage the user accounts, and other resources on a network. Users can use a single username and password to log in to any computer on the Active Directory domain. If you forgot domain administrator password and don’t have any other administrative account, you’ll lose full control over your Active Directory server. Is there any way to reset a lost Active Directory password?

Many people will think of some tools such as Offline NT Password and Registry editor, Ophcrack, Hiren’s Boot CD or Ultimate Boot CD. These tools may be a good choice when you forgot Windows local admin/user password, but none of them support Active Directory user passwords. As it’s known to us, Microsoft keeps encrypted passwords of Windows local accounts in SAM database, while using much stronger algorithms to secure Active Directory passwords and saving them in NTDS database. Cracking a lost Windows password is quite difficult for us, not to mention  cracking Active Directory password. But it doesn’t mean we can’t get around the problem. We can still reset Active Directory password quickly and easily.

With Password Recovery Bundle we can reset lost Active Directory password on Windows Server 2008, 2003 and 2000. It works even if your Active Directory account is locked out or disabled. The password resetting procedure can be done in 2 steps:

Step 1: Create a Active Directory Password Reset Disk
First we need to find another accessible computer to download and install Password Recovery Bundle. Launch the program and click the Windows Password button, it allows you to create a password reset disk, which will be used to reset your lost Active Directory password.

Step 2:  Reset Active Directory Password
Insert the Active Directory password reset disk into your domain controller. Restart the computer and have it to boot from the password reset disk. When the loading procedure is complete, you’ll see the Reset Windows Password program. Choose  your Active Directory database (ntds.dit), the program will display a list of Active Directory user accounts. Select a user whose password you already forgot, then click Reset Password button. The program will immediately change the Active Directory password to a new one: Password123.

Restart your domain controller and remove the Active Directory password reset disk, you’ll be able to log in to your Active Directory user account using the new password. It’s that easy!

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How to Change Active Directory Password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000

May 26th, 2012 by Admin

One of the prominent services of Windows Server is Active directory. Active directory manages user accounts and the permissions  granted to them from a single point. System administrator, the user of server system with administrator privileges, has the right to grant or revoke domain user’s privileges, create user account, set or reset password, etc.

With all the important functions handled from the server, what will happen if you forget Active Directory password, or it happens that an ignorant system administrator leaves the job without telling the password to anyone else? Question arises, “How to reset Active Directory Password?” There are many manual methods and third party tools available to help you out from the critical situation.

Windows Server account can be categorized as local account and domain controller account. This means that you cannot use the Active Directory service when you login through local account. With Password Recovery Bundle we can easily reset local account password and change active directory password.  In this tutorial we’ll only show you how to change Active Directory password on Windows Server 2008/2003/2000.

Step 1: Create a Active Directory Password Reset CD

  1. First download and install Password Recovery Bundle on another computer you have access to.
  2. Launch the program and click Windows Password button.
  3. Insert a blank CD/DVD into the CD drive and then click Start Burn to create a Active Directory Password Reset CD.

Step 2: Change Active Directory Password

  1. To have your domain controller to boot from the Active Directory Password Reset CD, you may need to change the BIOS settings to set CD/DVD as the 1t boot device.
  2. Insert the Active Directory Password Reset CD  into the CD drive of your domain controller and start the computer.
  3. Now that the computer is booting from the CD, an initial set up screen that says the computer is loading files will be displayed.
  4. When the screen of Reset Windows Password appears,  select a Active Directory user and then click Reset Password button.
  5. The program will change the Active Directory password to Password123 by default.

Reboot the domain controller and eject the Active Directory Password Reset CD, you’ll be able to log on the domain controller using your Active Directory user account.

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Forgot Active Directory Password? How to Reset It Easily

April 28th, 2012 by Admin

I have install first time Active Directory on my server 2003 and set the password within installation. And after this I forget password. Now I cannot logon even server 2003. Is there any possibility to logon my server and Active Directory or I need format & do installation again.If there is any way to out over this problem, tell me how to do this?

Forgot Active Directory password? The network administrator left without leaving the server password?  The problem may become quite tricky if there are a lot of domain accounts in it. You may couldn’t simply choose to reinstall Active Directory as there are many factors you need to consider. Fortunately there is an easy-to-use Windows password recovery software that can give you a hand. With Reset Windows Password utility, you can easily and quickly reset forgotten Active Directory password in minutes.

Let’s see how can you reset Active Directory password you forgot:

Step 1: Burn a bootable CD/DVD or USB flash drive

  1. Click here to download and save the Reset Windows Password self-extracting Zip file to a folder on your hard drive, then extract the ISO image file: ResetWindowsPwd.iso from it.
  2. Insert a blank CD/DVD or USB flash drive on your computer.
  3. Download and install the ISO2Disc utility, launch the program.
  4. Click the Browse button to locate your ISO image file, then click the Start Burn button to burn the ISO image to your CD/DVD or USB flash drive.

    Burn ISO Image to CD/DVD or USB flash drive

Step 2: Change BIOS Settings

  1. Boot your locked computer. When it is powered on, check the boot-screen for setup key (i.e. DELETE key, F8 key, F2 key) to enter BIOS Setup Utility.
  2. Use the arrow keys to select the BOOT tab, then change the Boot Device Priority: Set 1st Boot Device to CDROM if you just created a bootable CD or DVD, or set 1st Boot Device to Removable Device if a bootable USB flash drive was created.

    BIOS Setting

  3. Press F10 to save your changes. Now your computer is able to boot from CD/DVD or USB flash drive.

Step 3: Reset Windows Active Directory Password

  1. Insert the newly burned CD/DVD or USB flash drive to your locked computer, then reboot your computer.
  2. Then you will see Reset Windows Password is initializing.

    Loading from the Reset Windows Password bootdisk

  3. Simply select the Active Directory database file (ntds.dit), the program will list all domain accounts for your domain controller. Select a user account and click the Reset button, the password will be changed to Password123.

    Reset Windows Password

  4. Click the Restart button to reboot the computer, you are able to log in to Active Directory (AD) server using the new password: Password123.

In addition, Reset Windows Password also enables you to reset Windows local administrator and user password on Windows 8, 7, 2008, Vista, 2003, XP, 2000.

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