We have already seen using Ophcrack Live CD for Cracking Windows XP and Windows Vista Passwords. The thing is that now a days we do not use CDs anymore, we use USB drives for our day to day activities. Now what if you want to run Ophcrack from your USB drive instead of wasting money on a CD or if your CD ROM Drive is not working? Moreover using USB drives are more convenient and common these days. Here I have an Ideal solution for this question. But if you are not interested in recovering the password or you simply want to reset or delete the password then there is much easier technique which requires only a 3 MB file instead of Ophcrack. Just see how to Reset windows Password Using a USB drive or a CD
In this method we will be using a program called 7-ZIP for extracting the ISO file and some batch files for making the drives bootable.
USB Requirement:
- Minimum 512 MB for Windows XP
- Minimum 1 GB for Windows Vista Or Windows 7 Beta
- Format: FAT32
I have tried this method in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 Beta and it works perfectly fine. Follow the steps below:
Step 1: Download the ISO File For Ophcrack Live CD 2.1.0 From the links below: (Choose according to your operating system). If you have already downloaded skip this step.
Windows XP:
Size: 452 MB
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ophcrack/ophcrack-xp-livecd-2.1.0.iso
Windows Vista or 7:
Size: 532 MB
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ophcrack/ophcrack-vista-livecd-2.1.0.iso
Step 2: Download the ZIP File For making USB boot version of Ophcrack Live CD From the link below:
Size: 414 KB
http://www.techrena.net/downloads/usbboot.zip
Step 3: Extract the usbboot.zip file at any location of your computer, not in the USB drive.
Step 4: Copy the Ophcrack Live CD ISO file to the usbboot folder. Double Click the USBOphcrack.bat (ExtractophIso.bat) file.
Step 5: Type the letter of your USB drive and press Enter (The USB Drive should be Formatted with FAT32 File system before starting the process). Here in my case the Drive letter is ‘h’.
Step 6: Wait for the Extraction process to complete. Follow the on Screen Instructions given by the command prompt as shown below.
Step 7: Now restart the System. You need to set the boot order to Boot from USB Drive as the first option if you have not set USB Drive as the first option. To do this you need to go to bios setup and change the order. For most of the systems the keys like DELETE, F10, F2, F12 etc are used for going to the Bios setup. But here I have used the Boot Menu Key which will show the available boot options during start up. For my System(HP) the boot menu key is Esc. For Compaq Systems it is usually F9. So if you know the Boot menu key then no need to change the order. Just Select USB Drive from the menu.
Step 8: Now after the boot from USB Drive you can follow the Steps 4 to Step 7 given in the previous post:
Important:
1. If you are not interested in recovering the password or you simply want to reset the password then there is much easier technique which requires only a 3 MB file instead of Ophcrack. Just visit the link to see how it works:http://www.techrena.net/computers/reset-windows-xp-vista-7-password-usb-pen-drive-cd/
2. The windows vista live CD works for Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 also. There is no official release for Windows 7 yet.
3. This is for information purposes only. We are not responsible for any damages or illegal acts resulting from this information.
4. The information provided here should be used for legal purposes only.
5. Ophcrack is a legal open source program. Visit http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ for more details. Click Here to Read the Terms of Use.
6. The method given here may work for previous versions of Ophcrack Live CD also. Paste the ISO file in the OphcrackUSBboot folder and continue the process.
7. If your motherboard or your BIOS does not support USB diskette Booting then this method will not work.
