He could take out the hard drive, take it to a computer shop and have the files on it copied to another hard drive.
It also depends on where she put the password. If it’s on the administrator account, not much he can do.
He can try booting and holding down the F-2 key which will give him the choice to boot up in safe mode (I’m assuming a Windows computer here) and he might be able to get into administrator mode that way.
If the security is just for the O/S, pull the HD and hook it up to another computer and copy all the files and then make an image of the drive.
He needs to first talk with his divorce lawyer.
This may work:
Items Needed:
- Blank CD
- Ophcrack
To find the Window’s password, you’ll need a program called Ophcrack. It is completely free, and works very well. Ophcrack is not really a program—it is a LiveCD that is burned to a blank CD (or a USB flash drive if using on a newer computer) and runs rainbow tables on a Slackware base.
Installing
Navigate to the official Ophcrack website at http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ — download the Live CD ISO and save it to your computer. Once it is downloaded, you will need to burn the disc image to a blank CD. The software used will vary—if your system doesn’t have burning software already installed, you can download a trial of Nero, or something free like ImgBurn. Burn it at a low speed.
Using
To use the software, insert the CD into the optical drive on the computer you wish to gain access to and hold the power button until it shuts down. Turn it back on and when the compute logo appears, press the button for the system to enter BIOS. Change the boot sequence to CD first, then Save and Exit BIOS.
The Live CD will start and the rainbow tables will automatically start working at the password. For the average users password, it will likely take about five seconds to crack. For a longer alphanumeric password, it could take a few minutes, but that is the exception, not the rule.
Once it finds the password, write it down somewhere, then remove the CD and restart the system. Enter the password at login and then change/remove it to whatever you would like
.
Note: Common sense says that this should only be used on computers you are authorized to gain access to. If you use this to find the password to a computer that is not your, it is illegal. This article is for informational purposes only.
Boot the computer with a live Linux CD and copy the desired files to a USB thumb drive.
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As long as it’s the regular Windows password, you can often press F8 repeatedly on startup, start it in safe mode, and there’s often a hidden Administrator account.
You can go into that and then actually strip out the password for the other user. But in order not to create waves, it might be better just to go in and find the data file you want without stripping the main user password, and make a copy of it.
If that fails (no hidden Administrator account or it’s passworded with an unknown password) there are utilities you can find out there on the web that will allow you to create a boot disk that will allow you to strip the main password.
All I can say is that in my case..... if I’d have shot her when I first wanted to, I’d have been out by now.
Take the entire computer out of the house. NOW. Put it in a safe place, e.g., home of a retired Army relative. This is going to get messy.
He needs a lawyer.
The chances are that she has also likely changed the passwords to all the accounts accessed from that computer. That will complicate things. Depending upon whose name is primary on the accounts, it can be easy or difficult to fix.
You didn’t say if the password was a system bios password or a password for a drive encrypting program that makes the files unreadable without the proper key.
If it’s a notebook pc you may have trouble but if the computer is a desktop variety all you have to do is remove a pair of jumper pins on the motherboard and you need to find out where they are for your particular board.
Once you change the jumper pins it will deleat the password as well as the system settings so you will have to reenter the bios and set everything up again.But you should gain access to the drive unless the drive itself is protected by a password.
My Dell notebook PC is like that once you lock it with a password it encrypts the contents of the drive.
Youe nephew needs a lawyer to get good advice.
There are a variety of things one can do. There are password cracker programs; there is the ability to boot from another media (floppy, CD, or USB) and access the drive from the command line or the booted operating system. Those are two options. If you need more help, freepmail.
If it’s a BIOS password you can pull the motherboard backup battery out for a few minutes or so. If the files are encrypted with a shareware type encryption you might be out of luck. If it’s an Admin password the posts here tell you how to get around that. OTT get that computer out of your house.
However, you didn't say what OS was on the computer. I assume that it's Windows XP. But, here's a tool that you can use to simply reset the password for modern Windows systems (NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7):
http://www.pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/
It requires that you download it onto a floppy or CD, and boot from it. That may require changes to the BIOS to make sure that device is selected before the hard disk.
But, there are countermeasures against all of these methods: a BIOS password or a hard disk password (typically only on laptops). The above tool will only change the password used to login to Windows.
He needs to immediately take the computer to someone who can make a forensic image of the drive that he can keep.
I wanted to point these two little babies out to you I swear by them.
http://trinityhome.org
http://www.clonezilla.org/
Best thing is they are free I have saved a few Windows boxes with them. the trinityhome disk can be used to reset a lost windows password all documentation is on the home page.