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XP Home recovering user account
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:15 pm
by Foo
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?
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 6:09 pm
by +JuggerNaut+
can't you just reset the passwords to those accounts and start digging?
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:12 pm
by zolborg
Take ownership of the files
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:51 pm
by Tormentius
zolborg wrote:Take ownership of the files
:icon14:
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:08 pm
by +JuggerNaut+
you can do that in recovery console? why not just reset admin password?
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:14 am
by Foo
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.
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 8:24 am
by zolborg
+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.
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:24 am
by Foo
+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.
Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2005 4:01 pm
by +JuggerNaut+
egads, good to know.
Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2005 11:56 pm
by dzjepp
Hmmm, microsoft copyprofile tool seems to do the job.
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:27 am
by Foo
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.
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:05 am
by Cooldown
use a hammer
Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:12 am
by +JuggerNaut+
Cooldown wrote:use a hammer
we knew you were all copy and paste