I have lost the knack A friend of mind has forgotten the password to an old computer they found IT's an HP. They fine with completely resetting it but the reset says she doesn't have enough space for that . She doesn't have any physical media I am thinking I will need to go to H P and download the recovery disk ? Rocket River
On computers with Windows that I have come across that had password issues, I used a program (or OS) to blank out the existing passwords for users. I don't remember the name of the program and I am winding down for the night, so this will have to wait for a bit. For now, I will go through the order of things to handle the password issue. 1.Download the program (probably less than 100 Meg) 2. Decide if it is best to boot the problem computer with a CD/DVD or USB stick See what the BIOS allows See if there is a usable CD/DVD Drive See if a USB drive or CD/DVD media is available. 3. Burn the ISO to the chosen media (USB drive or CD/DVD). Might have to use Rufus or similar if burning to USB. 4. Go into the BIOS of the problem computer and elevate the chosen boot media so that it is above the drive with Windows in the Boot order. 5. Reboot and the computer should go into the program/OS to blank out passwords. 6. Since it is for a special purpose and it won't be used for very long, there is no GUI and everything looks very Old School. 7. Set the User passwords to Blanks. If it asks about saving changes, then agree to that. 8. Exit the program/OS 9. Remove the Boot media. 10. Reboot the computer and it should take you to Windows. 11. There shouldn't be a password issue if everything above went right. 12. Go into an Admin account and set a password. 13. Decide what to do with any other User accounts on the computer. Maybe one or more Users will want to save their account. Have those Users give their Accounts a new password. 14. If everything went to plan and somebody is a bit compulsive, reboot and set the Boot order in the BIOS to the sequence that it was in previously. In the past, I had the program on a CD/DVD and the CD/DVD drive on the problem computer didn't work. Rather than tinker with a USB, I pulled the case cover of the problem computer. Did a temporary hookup of a spare CD/DVD and did what needed to be done. If doing it that way, you will have to eyeball the data and power cables to see what is possible. If you have a spare Data cable with some length, have it handy in case it is needed. The drive will want to wiggle while in use, so perhaps some Duct tape to hold it in place for a few moments. If you don't have a spare CD/DVD drive, it might is possible to Marry the drive from a working computer to the problem computer..
This web site has some screen shots and their writeup is similar to mine. Offline NT Password & Registry Editor (Chntpw) Tutorial in 2024 You didn't say for sure, but maybe you will be the person doing the work on this project. If so and you have a spare computer in a closet, hook it up and do a trial run so that you will already know what to expect when you use the Password Editor when working on your friend's computer. If you don't know what the keystroke combination is to get to the BIOS of your friends's computer, look it up beforehand. TLDR Be prepared
Put a new hard drive in it. They’re very cheap. And she might be very disappointed in the size of the old one, anyhow. at least, twss Then watch one of the many videos on “how to install windows on a new hard drive”
Not to be rude but did you try talking to it? "Computer, I forgot my password! Could you help an old fool out?" AI. The way of the future. The way of the future. The way of the future.
Maybe not Look for a Windows license sticker on the box. The product key will allow you to download an installer for USB. Also, each product key allows for installation on multiple machines (like 3 max or something). So you could use your own. and btw: this USB method will probably work without getting a new HD. That is you might not have the same problem as the Reset saying there isn’t enough space.
This is good Info. Thanks. Someone had recommended: Ophcrack Rocket River did not know the product key was good for more than one computer
Any more info such as Computer model Current installed OS Are they planning to put the computer to regular use or is this project mainly to scrape personal data?
HP Notebook - 14-am052nr (ENERGY STAR) Windows 10 They will use it regular but they don't care it everything is lost Factory Reset or Format Reinstall etc Rocket River
Thank you HP Notebook - 14-am052nr (ENERGY STAR) Product Specifications I would just get it going again before considering any upgrades.
If you don't change the motherboard, windows 10 should recognize it and reauthorize once you connect to the internet. Make sure to use the correct version of Windows (Home vs. Pro). During install it will ask you to enter a product key, you can choose skip for now and continue the installation. Once you finish installing Windows will automatically check the hardware on the machine against their records and authenticate it. I would recommend a full wipe and install, if they dont need any files from the machine. A fresh start will get rid of any bloat that may have built up. Make sure to download any drivers that you may need from HP. Especially ethernet (NIC card) or wifi drivers. You will need those to be able to connect to the internet to download software. As an aside, we use Ventoy at work for installing. It is a neat little program that you set up on a flash drive. You then add compatible OS iso files to it and it gives you an list of OS's you can install. It isn't something you would need in this situation, but if you find yourself needing to install different OS options to machines, it is a cool little program. You can have multiple versions of windows or linux and install whichever one you want. It does not work with Mac unfortunately.
I am currently looking to explore the VENTOY I actually find I cannot find my USB drives so I am grabbing on today to set it Up I figure a nice 16 GB drive should be more than sufficient. Rocket River
Yep install Ventoy on the drive then download the iso you want. There is a folder that you install them in.Just download and drag and drop in the folder on the USB drive. Launch the USB drive and Ventoy will give you a screen to choose which OS you wan tto install. You can copy as many different ISO's as your drive will hold as long as they are compatible with Ventoy. In your case you will want WIn 10. You can get this from the Microsoft website. However, you need to make sure you get the correct version. It comes in either home or Pro. There isn't a lot of difference in either one, but when it authenticates, if you installed the wrong version it will not work.
I finally Figured it out around midnight Used Hiren's boot CD Iso Worked Wonderfully. That Said I had to relook at the specs and I had overlooked the Harddrive space Hard drive: 32 GB eMMC I has like 25GB of an available 28. That is wild to me . . . .why so small But I'm just the Tech Looks like it maybe a Upgrade to Win10 from Win7 or 8 I think Alot of those copy files maybe still in there . . .. . You like to free them up to about 10 GB free but I'm not married to the idea most of the work is Web/Cloud based anyway Rocket River
The 32GB eMMC drives shipped with a stripped down version of Windows. You'll need to either make custom Win 10 install removing extra bloatware from the MS ISO (with like Rufus, but I don't recall how minimal you can get so will need to Google for guides) or go directly to HP and see if they might let you download the original image (probably outdated Windows). If you want to redo it, other option is to use tools to strip out current apps installed from the base install, since it took the install etc, there's apps that can help you but I can't think of them right now. It's because the eMMC drives basically crippled these entire systems. Some allow you to add a 2.5" SATA drive where you can easily improve these systems, while some manufacturers removed the port completely. This system is basically a netbook, where if you can't get a bigger drive to be used/make win 10 extremely small removing all the extra bloat, Linux would probably be a better choice, because it's going to run into a other problems as more updates are applied/drive fills.
USB sticks are quite cheap, so maybe one can be used for storage with the eMMC drive for the OS and a program or two. Other than a different web browser and something like Libre Office to give some ability to handle Office types of things at a modest level, not sure what other programs would be worth using space on the eMMC Drive. Not sure if the computer would support it, but maybe Ubuntu or similar on an external SSD Drive connected via the USB port. Perhaps it might be a step slow doing it that way, but there would be the ability to have much more storage than what the eMMC Drive is giving.
Not necessarily for this machine But I did want to get more comfortable with Linux Esp for all my internet stuff Rocket River
