cut a long story short... ...i have recently aquired a dell latitude x1 laptop, however, the one and only account on the laptop is password protected, and i wish to access this profile to find out information about its rightful owner, so i can proceed to return it to him. can anyone please help me out?
try this. http://www.loginrecovery.com/ http://www.securityconfig.com/software/passwordsoftware/passwordsoftware.htm
Try that, or download Hiren's BootCD *Google is your friend on this* and use it's password recovery tools.
Im not sure where this option is but i am preety sure u can create a carbon copy of the profile and this way u can create the copy without the password being protected.
Try this, start you laptop during the boot press F8, it will lead you to the boot screen, choose Safe Mode, when it boots up U should see 2 users on the login screen: Administrator and You maybe "skillsuk", click on Administrator, now you are logged as Administrator. OK, now, go to start>run>type "control userpasswords2" <- without the quotes, U will get a window, there should be 3 or 4 names in the list, click on yours for example "skillsuk" and deselect the square where it says: Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer. Click Apply, OK, OK. Restart, now U should be able to log in without entering the password.
Also, you can retrieve that password with a linux boot disc. The one I like is called Backtrack. There is a specific video tutorial on just this very topic at IronGeek's website. Google it
