Windows 8.1 password recovery help.

N

n64link

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May 21, 2016
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I am trying to fix my mother-in-law's laptop. It's a little HP thing. I removed the hdd to recover some files. She just can not remember her password. The drive is not fubar or anything. I know windows stores your login in the registry I'm not understanding guides online to view a second HDDs registry.
I need a "explain this to a 4 year old" version of how to access the hdd's registry from my pc. I don't want to reset or change the password I just want to recover it. so I can put everything back together and go clean the junk files from her pc. My system is windows 7 and her win8.1 hdd is drive f in my pc, right now.

I appreciate any help, thank you for your time.
 
I'd also like to add that when the hdd was in the laptop. Win + X did nothing. I've seen in various "guides" that this is all you have to do to get a command prompt from the winlogin screen. it does nothing for me I don't know why. I don't have any of the recovery disks that came with this laptop. I just want to get this stupid thing fixed so my wife will stop asking me, "when are you gonna fix mom's laptop?" I'm about to shoot this thing.
 
The password is not stored in the registry, it's stored in an encrypted file and is not reversible.

Use NTPWEdit to erase the password: http://cdslow.org.ru/en/ntpwedit/
Your computer might think this is malware, it's a tool that has been around a long time and works very well, so you may need to let any antivirus software know this is safe.

Open NTPWEdit, if it shows C:\WINDOWS as the path, change it to F:\WINDOWS\CONFIG\SAM and click the Open button. Select the account name to unlock, click Unlock if it's locked and click the 'change password' button; I'd recommend setting a blank password. If you put the drive back in the laptop it'll now either auto login to the account since the PW is blank or you'll have to click on the username.

If you just want to recover files, go to C:\Users\whateverusername and find the files there.
 
yup that^ or d/l the new hirens disk/usb with various easy to use tools.
 
So, I'm having a few speed bumps. I changed the password for my mom's account (to a blank) and unlocked the admin account, Just in-case the PW change didn't work. Well I still can't sign on to the laptop with her account. It would seem that she probably just followed on screen directions and made a microsoft account and linked this stupid laptop to it. I'm contemplating just deleting her user account and making a new one.

Is there a way I can un-link this laptop to her account on the system? She doens't remember her microsoft info or which email she used to make it. She has a habit of making a new email every fucking year. I appreciate the help so far, very much, at least I can use the admin account.
 
There are programs out there that can crack the microsoft account but they cost money.
 
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