Locked Out of Administrator Account

[TastyWheat]

Due to a lack of reading documentation and a lot of bad luck I'm locked
out of my only administrator account. The account I'm using now is a
limited user; probably not even a power user. I used a 3rd party
program to restrict access to my computer during certain times of the
day (otherwise I won't get any sleep). However, I set up the program
incorrectly and now my computer is locked up as soon as I login. I
don't know the password, but I typed it into a password managing
program I have. However, I can't load the program from any other
account than the administrator. I tried using the "Run as..." option
but I don't have the Secondary Logon service running. I've tried a few
boot disks but none of them give me write permission to the hard drive
(NTFS4DOS didn't work). Also, I tried my trusty old Knoppix cd, and of
all things, I couldn't su to root! Even if it worked I'm not sure
Knoppix can write to an NTFS drive. If it did though I would take my
chances. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Malke]

Due to a lack of reading documentation and a lot of bad luck I'm
locked
out of my only administrator account. The account I'm using now is a
limited user; probably not even a power user. I used a 3rd party
program to restrict access to my computer during certain times of the
day (otherwise I won't get any sleep). However, I set up the program
incorrectly and now my computer is locked up as soon as I login. I
don't know the password, but I typed it into a password managing
program I have. However, I can't load the program from any other
account than the administrator. I tried using the "Run as..." option
but I don't have the Secondary Logon service running. I've tried a
few boot disks but none of them give me write permission to the hard
drive
(NTFS4DOS didn't work). Also, I tried my trusty old Knoppix cd, and
of
all things, I couldn't su to root! Even if it worked I'm not sure
Knoppix can write to an NTFS drive. If it did though I would take my
chances. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions?

Contact tech support of the third-party program you used.

Malke

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Due to a lack of reading documentation and a lot of bad luck I'm locked
out of my only administrator account. The account I'm using now is a
limited user; probably not even a power user. I used a 3rd party
program to restrict access to my computer during certain times of the
day (otherwise I won't get any sleep). However, I set up the program
incorrectly and now my computer is locked up as soon as I login. I
don't know the password, but I typed it into a password managing
program I have. However, I can't load the program from any other
account than the administrator. I tried using the "Run as..." option
but I don't have the Secondary Logon service running. I've tried a few
boot disks but none of them give me write permission to the hard drive
(NTFS4DOS didn't work). Also, I tried my trusty old Knoppix cd, and of
all things, I couldn't su to root! Even if it worked I'm not sure
Knoppix can write to an NTFS drive. If it did though I would take my
chances. Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions?

Reset the administrator's password to a blank by booting with
a boot disk from here: http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html

I would not call this mishap "bad luck" but rather "lack of planning
ahead". How many sets of keys do you have for your car? More
than one? Why? How many admin accounts do you have for your
PC? Just one? Enough said.

 

[HeyBub]

Due to a lack of reading documentation and a lot of bad luck I'm
locked out of my only administrator account. The account I'm using
now is a limited user; probably not even a power user. I used a 3rd
party program to restrict access to my computer during certain times
of the day (otherwise I won't get any sleep). However, I set up the
program incorrectly and now my computer is locked up as soon as I
login. I don't know the password, but I typed it into a password
managing program I have. However, I can't load the program from any
other account than the administrator. I tried using the "Run as..."
option but I don't have the Secondary Logon service running. I've
tried a few boot disks but none of them give me write permission to
the hard drive (NTFS4DOS didn't work). Also, I tried my trusty old
Knoppix cd, and of all things, I couldn't su to root! Even if it
worked I'm not sure Knoppix can write to an NTFS drive. If it did
though I would take my chances. Anyway, does anyone have any
suggestions?

Be sneaky:

Install your third-party program, say, "PassWordSafe" (which I recommed), on
another computer.

From your limited account on the hurt computer, copy PassWordSafe's data
file to the other computer.

Use the other computer to discover the password of the crippled computer.

 

[TastyWheat]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I don't know what was wrong with
Knoppix before, but I tried again and was able to mount the NTFS drive
and even write to it. I just renamed the file temporarily then changed
the settings back. That program turned out to be crap anyway. If that
didn't work I probably would've went with HeyBub's idea. Since I
regained control I enabled the secondary logon service so I probably
won't have that kind of trouble again.