Hello,

    I am really new to this site but I thought that it was a very good place to start to solve the dilemna that I have.  I have a laptop running on windows vista platform and it was lent out a little while back to one of my cousins.  At the time, there was no password stored to log into the cp.  Now that I have gotten my cp back, it is now asking for a password and noone seems to know the password.  I am not sure if someone came over and was fooing around with it and stored a password on purpose or accident but I do know that I can no longer log into the cp at all.  I do not want to use the disk that came with the software because this would cause me to lose alot of information that I have stored on the cp so I am really looking to alternatives for this problem.  I have gotten the NT hash for the password but have not been able to decode it.  If there is any way that someone can help me to decode this hash, it would be extremely appreciated.  Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out.

NT hash:

5230099e9b837e353c5bc814ae94d394

Thanks again,
Anthony

Thanks for the information you gave.  I was considering the boot disk option at one point but I found out that If I had encrypted informatin on the cp, it will or may be lost.  I was more so hoping that you or someone on your team could help and just crack the NT hash that I provided.  I did burn the Ophcrack program but when it ran, it told me that the password was not found and I do not have the monies to get the rainbow tables or too familiar with how to work them.  If it is at all possible, can someone just crack the hash and provide me with the password??

Don already supplied you with a few possibilites you have. In terms of rainbow tables, which is again not absolute necessary in this scenario, there are also free ones available. If you are not satisfied with the free ones, there is also the possibility to generate them by yourself.

Maybe asking your cousin could solve the problem too..

If you weren't able to access the box with enough permissions to change the password how were you able to dump the hash?

If you need access to the system urgently take a look for any of several good and easy to use/find tools to reset the pass. For legit usage you don't need the password, just access right?

This is an excellent way to get fired for something silly.   My advice would be to leave it alone, it's not worth losing your job over.

You still haven't said exactly why you want the password. I'm going on the assumption that you're not in the IT department. Which means you're trying to by pass your company's security policy. If you really want to impress your co-workers and be a real hero, make a business case as to why you need the software you think you do.

Those are not your personal computers, they don't belong to you.

(I've had to deal with problems like this at work recently, so I'm a little bitter).