Lost Password

[chrisp909]

I have a Windows 2000 server being used as DNS and Web server. I did not set it up I have never really needed to mess with it.

The server needed to be restarted and now I can't get back in because the previous guy didn't update our password list.

I know there are some ways to hack an NT box with a linux boot disk and even some over the counter stuff but as I understand the 2000 stuff is unreliable at best.

Question is: Can I reinstall 2000 and reset administrator password without loosing all the settings that are on the box now?

If not what are my alternatives?

Thanks

 

[Sithl0rd]

How is the server configured ?
Is it a Domain Controller, is it a Member Server or is it a Stand Alone

 

[chrisp909]

It is a domain controller.

 

[IamBuzzed]

If you have a Secondary domain controller, you can reset the password from usermanager. If not, then can you logon locally? If you can, I think you can change the domain administrator password from that. You might want to try and run the win2k setup and repair the the OS installationg, that might allow you to reset password.If not any of those, then you need a program that will reset the password at boot up, i.e linux disk. You will lose the settings you have previous and most programs that were installed for the server will not work because the registry will be replaced.

 

[Sithl0rd]

reinstalling windows wont affect the active directory, therefore it wont reset the password.
You are out of luck im afraid

 

[chrisp909]

I did a little additional looking around and found this:

http://www.lostpassword.com/windows-2000-nt.htm

This is different than lophtcrack because you don't need to crack the password hash, it changes the built in administrator password to some preselected choice. It says it is fully 2000 compatible.

Anyone heard of or delt with this before?

 

[seemoss]

I think you need to get a 98 start disk and put ntfsdos on it and get the SAM file, decode it, and this will not change any of your settings.

 

[chrisp909]

seemoss: when you say "decode" do you mean extract the users and the hashes from the SAM. Then compare the hashes from the SAM to hashes generated using the same algorythm to words in dictionary or from a brute force program?

Or do you mean you have some way of actually decoding the hash? If you do please let me know.

 

[ekinike]

I have used the below link to reset the administrators password from a W2K workstation. I am not positive it will work for you, but its worth a shot.

Just follow the defaults!
Use bd010114.zip (the new one has a bug)

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/