Long story short….

My dad passed away this past November and didn't leave any of his email passwords or anything else for my mom. He got my mom a labtop a ways back that he set up for her and she's been accessing no problem….up until now.

She hasn't logged in to it for a good while (at least a month without logging in) and now she can't login. She claims she's entering the same password as before but I highly doubt it as she's technologically illiterate and also getting forgetful so I'm sure she's not entering the same password anymore.

So…..

Is there any back door way to get into a labtop that's password protected? She's got all kinds of pictures and other things on that computer that she needs access to.

I'm open to anything.

what version of windows is it running? is she using a local account or MS account?

I have no idea I never use it but I have it in my possession now.

When I click "forgot pin" it takes me to a prompt to enter a Microsoft password that obviously my mom or myself don't know…not sure if that's helpful but that's what it does…

And if I were to hit "forgot password" for that it looks like it'll send an email to one of my dads email accounts that we can't access…

it is 10 or 11. Sounds like it is an MS account which makes it more difficult. I would pull the hard drive and mount it on another PC and see if you can grab the files that way.

AgDev01 said:

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it is 10 or 11. Sounds like it is an MS account which makes it more difficult. I would pull the hard drive and mount it on another PC and see if you can grab the files that way.

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This.

Another approach that may be better is to use a bootable CD or Flash Drive with Ubuntu or some other Linux OS on it. Instead of installing the OS, mount the hard drive and copy the files you want to a large Flash Drive or a portable USB drive.

eric76 said:

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AgDev01 said:

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it is 10 or 11. Sounds like it is an MS account which makes it more difficult. I would pull the hard drive and mount it on another PC and see if you can grab the files that way.

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This.

Another approach that may be better is to use a bootable CD or Flash Drive with Ubuntu or some other Linux OS on it. Instead of installing the OS, mount the hard drive and copy the files you want to a large Flash Drive or a portable USB drive.

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This is what I would do. Live version of Linux and copy files you need so where else.

Oh dude….if that bothers you then I wouldn't recommend reading any long posts of mine on the Entertainment board….i mistype crap over there all the time…

And I'll see if I can find some companies or a tech guy where I live (Richmond, TX). I'm not knowledgeable enough to do what is being recommended above and also wouldn't want to be responsible for screwing that up since she's got a lot of important stuff on there.

Maybe he's breaking bad?