Comments on: Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CD

By: Joe Whitehead

Joe Whitehead — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:53:07 +0000

You can save that passwd file in case you need to change it back? I seem to remember in Unix systems the passwd file being all you need to get to crack passwords. Well at least 15 years ago since they’ve maybe gotten too hard to crack that way. Heh. Either way, returning the line in the passwd file should restore it in case you remember it again?

I know that some computers are setup so that changing the password without going through a special tool will corrupt encrypted files/folders/drives. The tool creates a chain of old password hashes I’d (maybe naively) imagine. Corrupt as in remove access to them. :/ This is the one BIG caveat of using password reset disks on Windows with folder encryption for example.

By: djas

djas — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:55:14 +0000

If you don’t know the username, you can use this command to display all the users:
cat /etc/passwd

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:00:09 +0000

Thank you. I used this technique after I “passwd -l”ed all my users on accident.

By: Chima

Chima — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:54:19 +0000

Awesome, hopefully it works. Thanks and GOD Bless you all.

By: gvsm

gvsm — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:17:26 +0000

What if you don’t know the user name?

By: hobo

hobo — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:34:42 +0000

To the post above brundle, VMware works in Ubuntu very very well. You should probably give that a shot.

By: brundle

brundle — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:38:29 +0000

Great article, I just put a dual-boot Ubuntu on a 1GB Vista laptop rather than spend �30 on another GB of memory. I’d be a total convert if I didn’t have to use Windows for work. This kind of information is just one of those `need to know` things that is bound to come in useful.

Re: the previous comment(s) there is a specific version of Ophcrack for Vista. It manages passwords a little differently to 2000/XP (much much harder to crack if you have a complex password apparently).

By: poweruser

poweruser — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:18:12 +0000

For resetting the passwords on Windows you can use the Ophcrack LiveCD. I used to it reset the password on my parents XP computer. While not positive, I think it works for most versions of Vista. Be responsible with it!

By: The Geek

The Geek — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:28:46 +0000

This article has nothing to do with Vista.

By: abhishekluck

abhishekluck — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:23:02 +0000

I have only disk with vista loaded.

suppose if forget the password then will this method work for resetting the vista passwd ??

abhi