Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.setup (More info?)

Hi,

We have a Windows Server 2003 with a lost Administrator password. It is
the PDC, and we don't have local or domain passwords.

We have tried the procedure at
http://www.petri.co.il/reset_domai [...] 003_ad.htm
and didn't get very far. After resetting the local admin password with
the rescue CD, we started up in Directory Services mode, but the new
password wasn't recognised.

The only option that I can see is to boot from a Linux live CD (e.g.
Knoppix), plug in a USB hard disk, copy the files on the Windows
partition to the external disk, reinstall Windows Server 2003, recreate
the users within AD, copy back their profiles from the external hard disk.

Will this work? Is there an easier way to do this? Surely we can't be
the only people in this position. How can we restore their mailboxes,
which I don't believe are part of their profiles?

Please let me know if this isn't the best newsgroup for this issue.

Antony

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.setup (More info?)

"Antony Gelberg" <antony@wayforth.co.uk> wrote in message
news:433420da$0$21186$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...
> Hi,
>
> We have a Windows Server 2003 with a lost Administrator password. It is
> the PDC, and we don't have local or domain passwords.
>
> We have tried the procedure at
>
http://www.petri.co.il/reset_domai [...] 003_ad.htm
> and didn't get very far. After resetting the local admin password with
> the rescue CD, we started up in Directory Services mode, but the new
> password wasn't recognised.
>
> The only option that I can see is to boot from a Linux live CD (e.g.
> Knoppix), plug in a USB hard disk, copy the files on the Windows
> partition to the external disk, reinstall Windows Server 2003, recreate
> the users within AD, copy back their profiles from the external hard disk.
>
> Will this work? Is there an easier way to do this? Surely we can't be
> the only people in this position. How can we restore their mailboxes,
> which I don't believe are part of their profiles?
>
> Please let me know if this isn't the best newsgroup for this issue.
>
> Antony

The usual way to solve this problem is to boo the machine with
a boot disk from here:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html,
then to reset the administrator's password to a blank.

It is also common to have at least two admin accounts on every
machine, with one of them locked away, the same as you never
have a car with one single set of keys.