XP Home recovering user account

Post by **Foo** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:15 pm

I'm working on a friend's PC and the windows install got completelty fucked.

I've installed a fresh copy of windows directly over the old one.

...only then to find that some of the user account were passworded and the documents folders were private.

I need to get back into those folders. I know there's a method via the recovery console becuase it gives you superbastard(tm) control over everything... but I dont know the finer points and I'm too dumb to make a decent google search string to get the answers.

Anyone able to give me the rundown or point me to a good guide?

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 6:09 pm

can't you just reset the passwords to those accounts and start digging?

Post by **zolborg** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:12 pm

Take ownership of the files

Post by **Tormentius** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:51 pm

zolborg wrote:Take ownership of the files

:icon14:

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:08 pm

you can do that in recovery console? why not just reset admin password?

Post by **Foo** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:14 am

I should have been more specific. This was XP home.

The right procedure was:
* reboot into safe mode
* Take ownership of the user profiles in NTFS permissions
* copy files to new user profile folders
* reboot

XP Home's NTFS file permissions limitations are such a crock of shit.

Post by **zolborg** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 8:24 am

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:you can do that in recovery console? why not just reset admin password?

Because if there are any encrypted files, they will be lost by resetting the password.

Post by **Foo** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:24 am

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:can't you just reset the passwords to those accounts and start digging?

When you reinstall windows, it creates new Administrator account and does not have any permissions on the old accounts. The old accounts are linked to the SID of the original Administrator account, and the new one has a different SID.

Same goes for the user accounts. Putting an identical user account back onto the new windows install results in a new profile being created called username.pcname, leaving the original folder untouched.

I dunno how common it is for people to get in this situation, but making it so awkward to get out of sucks.

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 4:01 pm

egads, good to know.

Post by **dzjepp** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:56 pm

Hmmm, microsoft copyprofile tool seems to do the job.

Post by **Foo** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:27 am

dzjepp wrote:Hmmm, microsoft copyprofile tool seems to do the job.

NUp. Copyprofile will only take a profile if the user has NTFS access to the files - without that access it won't/can't get in to copy the files.

Post by **Cooldown** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:05 am

use a hammer

Post by **+JuggerNaut+** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:12 am

Cooldown wrote:use a hammer

we knew you were all copy and paste