Help my cousin!

[D33]

For I have invented a weather controlling device so powerful that it can target living creatures for individual weather blasts. If no one helps me solve/hack/crack/beat with a hammer/etc my cousins PC I shall target all the fluffy bunnies in the world with rain storms!

That's right! RAIN STORMS!

Because nobody likes a fluffy bunny with a soggy bum.

Now that I have you in my grip of terror, onto the question.

My cousin installed Service Pack 2 on his PC ( I know .. ) and shock, horror, his settings and applications took a holiday to screwedsville.

So, he and his neighbour decided to do a Repair XP thingamejig and half way through it popped its clogs. Now whenever he boots, it goes back into this repair install of XP and then reboots again! Looping over and over.

So I grabbed his HDD, set it to slave, zoinked it in my external hdd enclousure and tried to read it on my laptop. Got in. could browse it but he's password protected his account ( I know his username and password but when trying to access it all it said was "ACCESS DENIED!" so couldn't do anything ).

So my cousin, my mate Glenn and I spent a good few hours trying to break into this folder, with no luck. The one time I need to bypass Microsoft security and they do a good job. Typical.

Now, since that time we've come up with a few cunning plans. One such plan ( can anyone confirm this will work ? ) is to set up my laptop as my cousins username and set the account to have a password, the same password as my cousins profile uses and would that trick the folder into letting me in?

CAN SOMEONE CONFIRM THAT ?! ANYONE ?! lo.. ?

Or, has anyone else got any other ideas that I might be able to use ?

My cousin really needs the files in his profiles folder :/

Help him ;(

think of the soggy bunnies ;(

[Norphy]

That probably won't trick you into letting him in. Windows security doesn't go by user name and password for its security gubbins, it goes by the GUID that Windows generates at random for each user.

What version of Windows are you using? As long as its not XP Home you should be able to do the following:

(assuming XP Pro) Right click on the folder, press Properties
Go to the security tab
Press Advanced
Go to Owner
Click on your user
Check the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" box
Press OK, then OK again
Re-open the properties box, go to security again.
If your username doesn't have full control over the folder, add it and give it full control

Assuming he hasn't encrypted his user profile folder you should now have full access, the downside being if by some miracle you do manage to repair his XP install his user profile will be b0rked.

[GroovYF]

I pasted the same thing into IRC the other night, D33

You must have missed it.

[D33]

Shambles :/

The OS on his HDD is XPHome, my laptop is XPHome but my main PC is XPPro so I'll have to shove it in that, not a problem.

When you say "if it's not encrypted", what do you mean?

What would he have to do/set to make it encrypted ?

All he has is a profile, possibly with Admin rights and that has a password to keep people from logging in willy nilly o.O

[D33]

My IRC client is fuxed and if that was the night I came onto irc rambling about it all ( probably was ) then I was using my mobile phone to connect and the connection was as stable as .. well, me :/

[GroovYF]

Yes, it was that same, night D33

Does XP Home support encrypted files. Never used it, but I doubt he's done anything as clever as that so wouldn't worry about it.
Basically, if it's encrypted the key will be on the HDD, which is only accessible (and exportable) if you boot onto it (which you can't)

[blurr]

If i can find the program I'll let you know.

I had the same problem when trying to back up some various documents from my (ex) g/f's computer, as her sister had a pwd'ed account. After a while I think I posted about it on this forum somewhere, and someone recommended me this dos program. Basically you boot up in dos using the program/floppy, then you can access the harddrive(s) and all its root directories, by passing any security, once in you can then copy any relevant documents or files to the floppy... or to another harddrive.

[D33]

ooh o.O

If you find this programme you will be known, for decades to come, as the saviour of bunnies ;(

[blurr]

I didn't post about it in here afterall I don't think... trying to do a google for it, in the meantime you could have a search yourself too

[megadaisy]

is this the one? http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

megadaisy