Using the Trinity Rescue Kit to reset passwords

Have you ever run into an issue where you forgot your laptop’s password and could no longer log into your computer. You basically have two options, reinstall the machine or try and find the password. Just FYI this article doesn’t contain detailed instructions but just provides a quick overview and some tips.

Resetting your password:
I went through a couple different options to try and reset or find the password for my computer but found Trinity Rescue Kit to be the best option. I have used this for Windows 7 and 8. The fastest way I found to use the program was to download the latest version and burn it to a CD. In order to boot the CD you may need to change the order of your boot option and modify the boot settings by going to the BIOS.
Download: trinity-rescue-kit.3.4-build-372

The instructions on resetting the password can be found the documentation found here.

Reinstalling the machine:
Two things to know when reinstalling your computer is you will lose all your data unless it was backed up somewhere and you will need a product key.

A quick way to grab your data if you don’t have a backup is to download Ubuntu and use it to get access to the files you need. You can either burn the Ubuntu ISO to a CD or make a bootable USB. You may need to change the boot order as well as modify some of the boot configurations to get the USB to boot correctly from the BIOS. Make sure to choose ‘Try Ubuntu without installing’ so you don’t accidentally install Ubuntu over windows, deleting your data.

The product key is usually found on the bottom of your laptop or with the install CD/DVD/ISO.