Do any of you know.....

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
husband left me with quite a network of computers & one laptop. The problem is he refused to share passwords & I cannot get into any of his machines.

There are family genealogies and histories that both sides of the family would like copies of along with god knows what.

My network nazi husband was a security freak. I cannot get into any of these machines.

Does anyone know of resources or the like to get into these machines?
 

mstang67chic

Going Green
My first thought is that maybe he wrote the passwords down somewhere but if he was that security concious....probably not. Or if he did, he coded them somehow.

So....the only thing I know of are "hacker" programs that people use to break passwords. I have no idea though where to get them. I would think you would have to take the computers to a good programmer or someone and have them break in so to speak. Unless of course, you want to spend hours inputting various possibilities. :faint:

I'll ask around though and see if I can find out anything that might actually be helpful to you.
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
I will ask Jamie when he gets up - I know he can get into my work computer from his even though its supposed to be password protected.

Marcie
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
I just googled - forgot password and hacking into computer - and a lot of sites come up to show you how to do that along with downloads :)

Marcie
 

klmno

Active Member
TL, my difficult child locked our computer up once this way, there is a way to over-ride thee password. Call the computer manuf. tech support and they will lead you thru it.
 

Steely

Active Member
Best Buy has a computer geek squad (or something like that) that will come to your home and figure this stuff out for you. It is actually complicated, and I think I would suggest having a professional doing it for you, rather than risk erasing the whole computer or getting a virus by hacking into it.

So sorry. If Matt was around I would send him over, because he knows how to do this as well - although - again, being done by a professional in my opinion holds a bit more of my confidence.
 
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mstang67chic

Going Green
The professional route seems to be the way to go. Here is a response I got when I asked around:

Well from what I know. Is that there is always and admin on the computer not a user. I had to go in to the bios and “repair” windows and remove the user. But if you need something from his profile I would go to a professional. You could do a lot of damage if you don't. Plus never trust just anyone with your stuff, there are various internet sites that say they have hacker tools that can help you but sometimes they are full of viruses and key loggers. Please just go to a professional and have the files transferred to another hard drive and reformat the other. But again that is my guess. I am not a professional yet just a student.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
If you don't get an answer before that, I can ask our IT guy tomorrow. I know that when my former boss left in a big huff (she went out in a blaze of glory :D!) she left our entire 2008/2009 budget and every bit of financial data for the whole institution on her pass-word protected computer! But I know they were able to get in to it so the information could be accessed, and then her passwords were replaced with new ones. Of course, they may have some type of 'over-ride' capabillities too. But I'll ask.
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Linda,
I just asked husband who is a network architect. He said that there are boot disks and password hacking programs available. The starting point is to know which operating system is running on the computer. Then you can get the correct boot disk and get onto the machine.

Do you know which O/S is running? I can ask husband about sources for boot disks, etc.

Geek Squad from Best Buy or Nerds on Site from Staples might also be able to come to your house and do all of this for you. I have no idea what they charge, but if you're not feeling up to messing with the computers yourself this might be a good option.

If you're willing to let me know your operating system, I can quiz husband further and get some specifics for you.

Trinity
 

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
Trinity,

I appears that husband was running Linux (debian, I believe) on his laptop. The network machine is running both Linux & Windows.

husband specialized in Linux, data mining & security.
 

SRL

Active Member
It would probably be good to share any specifics via email. There are difficult child's reading who would love to know how to get around passwords.;) Heck, you should have seen my non-difficult child kids trying to guess the password today to connect to Wii online.
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Thanks SRL. Very good point.
Linda, I will pick husband's brain, and send you a PM with whatever information I glean.

Trinity
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
One last thought from me (no, I am not savvy!). When I have a problem I have a couple of specialists that I trust who can access my computer directly and search for solutions etc. I used to need a program called easy child Anywhere but now evidently it is built in to the Windows program or AOL because they can give me a few instructions on the phone and then I walk away as they hunt for problems and solve them. It's been a lifesaver
for me. DDD
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
Linda, I'm just waiting for husband to get home from a visit to the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) wiht difficult child. I will ask him and PM you with whatever I find out.

Trinity
 
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