Win2000: How To Restore Admin Rights?

[EvilDragon]

A friend of mine did something really dumb:
He took all the rights from the admin (Win2k) - and the admin was the only user.
So now he can't access to anything...

I know I can use a Linux Boot Disk to copy all the important files and reinstall Win2k - but I wonder if anyone knows another way to restore the admin rights so I won't have to reinstall?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Iorgy77]

I recently found a linux bootCD .iso that allows you to change/reset the passwords and I think it also can reset the user rights.

do a search on google for: cd040116.zip

Helped me avoid reinstalling Win2000 for a friend who locked himself out of his laptop.

 

[frolik]

yeah I use ERD Commander I think it's from sysinternals.com but you may need to pay for it. There are various ways of doing this without a rebuild. If you have probs finding, let me know and I'll take a look

 

[finty]

With that boot cd could i give my self admin rights in my school's network?

That would rule.

 

[PinkSpider]

At wyke we all had read/ write access to the C: drive etc. (this only happened sometimes and when it did you couldnt access the net). The teccies just told us to reset the machine.

 

[Iorgy77]

With that boot cd could i give my self admin rights in my school's network?

well I know for sure you could reset the admins password on that workstation... so... unless the passwords are stored on the server yes you could

 

[frolik]

there's a sneaky method of getting admin rights by using the read-write version of NTFSDOS - boot up on a floppy and copy the SAM file off and delete it from the C: drive. Next time you boot windows all the accounts will have blank passwords - login as administrator and do what you want then use the boot floppy again and put the SAM file back and it will restore the old passwords

h34r:

disclaimer: don't come running to me when you get into trouble (kinda like I did at school when I broke several BBC B machines )