How to unlock a laptop if password forgotten

If there was an unpleasant incident – you forgot the access password to your laptop – you will need to unlock it. You can do this without reinstalling the operating system, preserving all data on the hard disk.

Not all advice is useful

Setting the password on the laptop helps to protect your confidential information and block unauthorized access to various programs, folders or files. However, if you forget the password or lose the piece of paper on which was written the password – access for you will be closed in exactly the same way as the others. Well, there is a possibility to restore access to the laptop with all the saved data.

On the Internet a lot of advice – both useful and not – about how to recover or bypass a forgotten password. For example, useless is a method of removing the SAM files*. By removing these files, you may encounter big problems. In this case, when the system is booting system error that informs that the laptop cannot be turned on and need to reboot in safe mode. After clicking OK, the system reboots, but appears again the error and so on to infinity. It ends, usually a full reinstallation of the operating system (losing all data).

Reset password through safe mode startup

To recover your password should be more humane ways. For example, the first step is to check a password hint (it is located on the welcome screen beside the password input). If the hint did not help to remember the password, then you need to log in using the administrator account and create a new password.

First you need to restart the laptop. Once the system is activated, press F8 key (may be different depending on the brand of laptop). Next menu advanced options of the system you need to choose "Safe mode". Then select built-in account "Administrator" (by default it is not password protected). After booting the desktop will appear warning that the system is running in safe mode. Click Yes to close the message box.

After this go into "control Panel" via "start" button and select "user Accounts". Next, you need to reset the password for your account click "Change password". To change the password you need to enter and confirm a new password. If the password is not required, leave the field empty, the password will be reset.

To save the settings, click "Change password". Close the window "control Panel", reboot the laptop – ready. Now when the system boots enter the new password and Windows will start.

You can also reset the password using various software tools. Usually they are written to disk or USB flash drive connect to the computer, and then the program removes the password.