Trouble with hda and windows

[Madman]

Hi!

There is a problem with a Vista laptop i need to fix. One girl forgot her password and he asked if I could unlock her laptop. I tried the http://www.pcloginnow.com/product.html and no go.

So next step was knoppix-std.

The problem is that when I do "cat /etc/fstab" as root there is a cdrom and flopy, but no hda/b/c/d/x drives, therefore I cannot mount them to retrieve registry and/or reset the password. lsmod wasn't listing any *ide* drivers as well.

I'm total Linux noob so I don't know how to proceed. I thought about modprob'ing ide drivers but I have no idea if they are loaded on CD at all. And I don't know how to list them.

The laptop servicing is an alternative, but that costs money, or requires laptop HDD adapters to attach it to desktop PC.

I would really appreciate all the help

[bitvector]

The problem is that when I do "cat /etc/fstab" as root there is a cdrom and flopy, but no hda/b/c/d/x drives, therefore I cannot mount them to retrieve registry and/or reset the password.

They don't have to be in /etc/fstab for you to mount them; those are just devices with predetermined mountpoints.

Try cat /proc/partitions, which will give you a list of devices that the kernel has already noticed and probed for partition tables. The laptop's hard drive might be /dev/sda as easily as /dev/hda these days (even if it isn't SATA physically).

[axeman]

Try this tool, it is probably easier than using a general purpose Linux live cd, it enables you to reset NT passwords.

http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

[Madman]

Well, the "cat /proc/partitions" returns: "major minor #blocks name". So no go... The tool is too difficult for the girl to handle it seems.

[UberGerbil]

There are other tools that can work, provided she can burn an ISO (or you can do it for her). Once you've solved this problem, you might want to suggest she create a password recovery disk (which for Vista can be a USB flash disk instead of a floppy) so you won't have to do this again.