Logging into a pc without knowing password win 8?

[noob-sysadmin]

I have an old pc running win 8.1 . The user account is an admin account local not joined to a domain . I am trying to check if thetes anything on the disk i want . I do not remember the password or have a reset disk . Is there a way , 3rd party tools etc to create another account to access the drive ? Thanks

[jkzfixme]

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/

this should do the job, burn to cd or usb drive and boot to it.

HOWTOs | Hiren's BootCD PE will show you how to replace the windows passwords.

You should also be able to access the drives.

[foo]

If the disk is not encrypted, boot off Linux live CD/USB, navigate to the \windows\system32 directory of the drive windows was installed to, rename sethc.exe to sethc.old.

Make a copy of cmd.exe, rename it sethc.exe in the same directory.

Reboot windows. At the login prompt press shift 5 times, and a cmd prompt will appear running as “system”

“net user *” will prompt for new password for that user.

Set it, then close window, and at login prompt, enter new password…

And Robert is your mother’s brother

P.S. if you use accessibility features like sticky keys…, reboot into linux, delete the cmd copy and rename sethc.old back to exe. You can do it in windows if you like, but easier in live boot.

Note: YOU can launch mmc from that command prompt, load computer management, and ADD a admin user if you like, (or from the command prompt, not hard). But if all you want is to eval the disk content, all of this is overkill since you could do that from the initial boot of the linux live

[noob-sysadmin]

The hiran boot worked. Thx everyone

[Rod-IT]

Please mark the post as best answer then to confirm who helped you.