Admin password to server /Any ideas ?

[RandyL]

Just picked up a new client. A medical office. They called me because they were quite unhappy with their previous tech. After taking a look at their set up, I can understand why.

One of the problems is: Neither they or the previous tech has the administrator password to the server. The server is running Windows 7 Professional. It has a SuperMicro MB using the built in Intel RAID. There are two (2) hard drives installed running RAID 01.

Because of the RAID drivers, its not possible to boot from a password "hacking" CD or boot from a Windows 7 Pro CD. Does anyone know of a type of boot media that would give me access to the files on the drive(s) ? If I could get to the file system (system 32 folder) I could replace utilman.exe with cmd.exe.

They have asked me to replace this server but I really need admin access before proceeding down that path.

Any ideas ?

Thank you,

R

 

[Markverhyden]

The account named administrator is disabled by default. What about backups? Can you confirm if they are running? Need to know about that before doing anything else. How was the login setup, using the old style username/password screen or the icon login screen? Have you tried password = <cr> (blank)

On the RAID. Most of the fake RAID chipsets, like Intel, use the OS and CPU for heavy lifting so M$ bootable disks usually work. Have you built one of Gandalf's bootable PE's - http://windowsmatters.com/2015/01/10/gandalfs-windows-7-pe-x86/?

 

[mikeroq]

Download the raid driver and put it on a flash drive, boot up the Windows 7 disc and put the driver in. Then you can rename the utilman or sethc and get in.

 

[RandyL]

Thanks for the replies... Markverhyden: The built in administrator account is disabled. The login is NOT the legacy login. It's the Win 7 icon login screen. There is one admin user account called "Server". This is the account with the lost password.

mikeroq... When using a Windows 7 Pro boot disk, if I try to use the repair option in order to access a elevated command prompt, there's no option to load a driver. I would have to start a install & that would not give me the option of a command prompt... Am I missing something ?

Thank you,

R

 

[Markverhyden]

Build the W7 PE disk to do the command substitution.

 

[RandyL]

So, Mark, you feel I can see the RAID volume with a this PE ?

Thanks,

R

 

[Markverhyden]

Maybe, maybe not. Not sure what drivers it comes with. But PE allows you to boot into a "normal" OS mode, which includes loading driver .inf files. What did you see when you were trying earlier, and with what disks? I'm guessing this is a Intel RST chip set?

 

[mikeroq]

Start the install, install the driver, then you will be at the partition selection screen. Press Shift+f10 to get a command prompt.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Once you get a replacement (hopefully proper) "server" lined up....ensure you have a solid backup of this serve....err...."desktop".....and just break the RAID and downgrade to standard SATA mode. Just set the BIOS to SATA mode..move the cables over to the normal port, and boot from 1x drive....go bust open the Administrator account with whatever trick you want....and now you have full control of this workstation and you can proceed with your migration..join the domain of the new server, move your data over, etc.

 

[pc-quebec]

There are two (2) hard drives installed running RAID 01.


R

is it RAID 0 or RAID 1 ? , The answer make a huge difference.

 

[RandyL]

is it RAID 0 or RAID 1 ? , The answer make a huge difference.

Sorry, it's a RAID 1

Thanks all for the advice


R

 

[TAPtech]

I use PartedMagic often, and I think that would do the trick in this case.

 

[putz]

you will need to use dism to install the RAID driver into the boot.wim file if you want to want the windows setup disk to be able to detect the RAID. Copy the contents of a Win7 CD to a temp folder, use something like RUFUS to create a bootable flash drive, and then use DISM tool to inject RAID drivers into boot.wim. Copy it to the flash drive and boot from it.

Or you can try like you are going to install windows and click the load raid driver when no disks show up and load the raid driver from a flash drive, then back out to the main screen and try repair. Not 100% sure if that works or not.

Otherwise check out active@ bootdisk
http://www.lsoft.net/bootdisk.aspx