Archive for May, 2014

Toshiba Encore Windows 8.1 Tablet Password Reset

May 30th, 2014 by Admin

Forgot Windows 8.1 password of your Toshiba Encore tablet? Need to recover or reset it? The easiest solution is using PCUnlocker. It enables you to reset forgotten Windows 8.1 password on any UEFI based devices, including Toshiba Encore tablet.

PCUnlocker Overview

PCUnlocker is a tool to use when you forgot/lost your Windows account password. Just boot your locked computer from PCUnlocker boot media and it allows you to reset and replace the password of any Windows account. The boot media can boot in 32-bit UEFI, 64-bit UEFI and legacy BIOS mode.

Prepare A Bootable Media

PCUnlocker runs from a WinPE boot disc, so you need to download and burn ISO onto a USB drive before you can use it. So download the PCUnlocker disc image and burn it to a disc using the freeware ISO2Disc. Remember to choose the GPT partition because Toshiba Encore tablet comes with 32-bit UEFI firmware instead of standard BIOS.

Reset Toshiba Encore Windows 8.1 Password

Once you have created the bootable media, you need to boot off it. So connect the USB-OTG cable to your Toshiba Encore tablet and plug in the bootable media.

toshiba-encore

When turn on the tablet, press and hold the power button together with Vol+ button at the same time until the device turns on and the boot device selection menu appears.

Select the USB Memory device and press Enter. The tablet will boot off the USB drive. Once you’ve booted into the USB drive, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program in minutes. The program automatically searches the Windows SAM database and lists your Windows 8.1 user accounts.

Select a local account and click on Reset Password button. It will reset / unlock your password quickly. If you’re using a Microsoft account with your Toshiba Encore tablet, there should be a local account associated with your Microsoft account. Choose that account and reset the password. Meanwhile, the program will also unlock your Microsoft account password.

The last step is to remove the USB drive and reboot your Toshiba Encore tablet. You should now be able to login to your Windows 8.1 account.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: forgot toshiba tablet password forgot toshiba windows 8.1 password reset toshiba encore password reset toshiba tablet password reset windows 8.1 password toshiba windows 8.1 password reset

PCUnlocker: Support 32-bit UEFI and 64-bit UEFI Boot

May 29th, 2014 by Admin

uefi UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace legacy BIOS (basic input/output system). Many new computers are shipping with UEFI firmware instead of standard BIOS. Most of UEFI-based computers come with 64-bit UEFI but there are also some Windows 8 tablets that use 32-bit UEFI, such as Dell Venue 8/11 Pro, Toshiba Encore, Acer Iconia W3/W4, Lenovo MIIX 2, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 and ASUS Transformer Book T100/T300.

However, there is a limitation on installing Windows on devices with UEFI firmware. A 32-bit UEFI firmware core must be used to install a 32-bit OS and likewise 64-bit UEFI for a 64-bit OS. It is possible to have support for both 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI in one BIOS, but it requires additional work and ROM space, so this may not be commonly implemented.

If you forgot Windows administrator password for a UEFI-based computer, you can reset it easily with PCUnlocker. Just make a PCUnlocker Live CD and you can then use it to reset lost Windows password on any computer with EFI/UEFI/BIOS firmware. If your computer doesn’t have an optical drive, you can use the freeware ISO2Disc to make a GPT bootable USB drive from PCUnlocker ISO image.

PCUnlocker is available in two version (UEFI 64-bit version and UEFI 32-bit version). You can purchase the full version or try the trial version before deciding on making a purchase.

Download PCUnlocker with 64-bit UEFI Support

Download PCUnlocker with 32-bit UEFI Support

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Posted in Others, Software News, Windows 8

Tags: UEFI BIOS UEFI boot windows UEFI password reset

Bypass Windows 8 Password on Lenovo IdeaPad with UEFI BIOS

May 22nd, 2014 by Admin

Forgot Windows 8 password to the only account on your Lenovo IdeaPad laptop? You might find that a lot of bootable recovery utilities won’t work because of UEFI BIOS, including BartPE. In this tutorial I’ll walk you through the steps of using PCUnlocker Live CD to bypass Windows 8 password on Lenovo IdeaPad.

How to Bypass Windows 8 Password on Lenovo IdeaPad with UEFI BIOS?

First of all, use another computer to download the PCUnlocker program, which comes as a self-extracting .zip file. After the file has downloaded, extract the pcunlocker.iso file from it. Burn the ISO image to a blank CD using your preferred CD burning program such as ISO2Disc.
Put your newly created CD in the CD drive of your Lenovo IdeaPad laptop and powering it up. When the Lenovo logo appears, immediately press Fn + F2 to enter the BIOS setup utility. You can also enter into BIOS by pressing the Novo button when your laptop is powered off, and then select BIOS Setup.
In the BIOS Setup, select the Security tab and change Secure Boot value to Disabled.
Next, on the Boot tab, change the Boot Mode from UEFI to Legacy Support.

Press Fn + F10 to save the change and exit BIOS. But the laptop will go straight to booting again, so you’ll need to shutdown or power it off.
Turn on the computer again. Press Fn + F12 to access the Boot menu, or press the Novo button and select Boot Menu. On the boot menu screen, select your CD drive and press Enter.
After booting the laptop from the CD, it loads the Windows PE operating system and finally opens up the PCUnlocker program. The program automatically detects the operating system installed on your hard drive, and then displays a list of Windows 8 local user accounts.
Choose one of your administrator accounts and click on Reset Password button. The program will unlock your selected account and reset the password immediately. Eject the CD and restart your computer. Enter into BIOS Setup and change the BIOS Mode back to UEFI.
Now you’ve successfully bypassed Windows 8 Password on Lenovo IdeaPad with UEFI BIOS, and you can log back into Windows 8 without a password! Enjoy it!

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

Tags: bypass windows 8 password forgot lenovo laptop password forgot windows 8 password lenovo password recovery reset lenovo password reset windows 8 password

SQL Server: Lost SA Password or SA Account Is Locked out

May 19th, 2014 by Admin

Lost SA password? SA user is locked out and login fails with Windows Authentication. Now what? Here are some of the options I think you may do:

You will try logging in as SA with all possible passwords you have in your mind.
You will look for the SA password on your computer hard-drive or in your emails (If you had stored it in some file which is a bad practice).
Try to restore MASTER database from database backup. However, this will not help because you will run in to the same issue as you don’t remember the SA password.
Rebuild Master database. This may not help as you will lose all system/server level configurations and settings including logins, permissions and any server level objects.
Re-install SQL Server 2012 and attach all user databases. This may not work as you may experience same issues that you would experience with the option above.

However, the best and fastest way is to unlock SA account with SQL Server Password Changer. Get instant control over locked databases no matter how many instances of Microsoft SQL Server are running. Follow the steps below and you can easily unlock SQL Server database in case you lost SA password or SA account is locked out.

First of all, stop the SQL Server service to prevent it blocking access to the master.mdf file.
Download and install the SQL Server Password Changer program. After you’ve installed it, launch the program.
Click on the Open File button. In the file open dialog, select the master database (master.mdf). Usually the master.mdf file is located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\, where MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER is the name of your SQL Server instance.
Once choosing the master.mdf file, the program shows you a list of SQL users.

Select the SA account and click on Change Password. Set a new password and click OK.
The program will replace the lost SA password and also unlock your SA account in no time.
Restart your SQL Server service and you can then login to SA account successfully.

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Posted in SQL Server, Tips & Tricks

Tags: forgot sql server password lost sa password lost SQL Server password sa account locked out unlock sql server

VMware: Change SCSI Controller Type from BusLogic to LSI Logic

May 11th, 2014 by Admin

After upgrading to a 64-bit operating system or an operating system that does not support BusLogic, you may receive the following error on startup:

The BusLogic SCSI adapter is not supported for 64-bit guests in this release

If you boot the virtual machine from a WinPE bootdisk, you’ll be unable to see your hard drive. BusLogic is not supported in a lot of the newer operating systems. BusLogic is not actively being improved by VMware so bugs come along as things change in the OS and none fixes them.

To get around this issue on a VMware virtual machine, you need to change the SCSI controller type from BusLogic to LSI Logic. There isn’t an option in the VMware Player or Workstation to change the SCSI type, so I turn to edit virtual machine’s configuration (.vmx ) file by following these steps:

Power off your VMware virtual machine and then use a text editor to open your virtual machine’s configuration (.vmx ) file.
Find the line that begins with scsi0.virtualDev, where 0 is the SCSI controller number of your virtual hard drive. If your current SCSI control type is BugLogic, there should be a line present in your .vmx file: scsi0.virtualDev = "buslogic". Replace this line with with scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
If there is no such line, simply add the following line to your .vmx file:
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
Save the .vmx file and close the text editor. Start your virtual machine and it will run with the LSI Logic SCSI controller.

The SCSI controller type of a virtual hard drive can be one of the following ones, but only the BusLogic SCSI adapter does not work under 64-bit operating system.

buslogic – BusLogic SCSI
lsilogic – LSI Logic SCSI
lsisas1068 – LSI Logic SAS
pvscsi – VMware Paravirtual SCSI

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Posted in Others, Tips & Tricks

Tags: change VMware SCSI controller type

How to Disable Windows Authentication in SQL Server

May 4th, 2014 by Admin

MS SQL Server supports two types of authentication models: Windows Authentication and SQL Server Authentication, which are configured during the installation of SQL Server. Windows Authentication is the default option for new SQL Server installation and it allows you to access the database without providing a username or password.

sql-windows-authentication

If you don’t want the users to open the database using Windows Authentication for security purposes, you can disable it easily.

How to Disable Windows Authentication in SQL Server?

Login into SQL Server using Windows Authentication or SQL Server Authentication.
In Object Explorer, open Security folder, open Logins folder. Right click on the local account and go to Properties.
In the Login Properties window, select the Status tab.
Set Login to Disabled, or set Permission to connect to database engine to Deny.

After disabling the Windows Authentication in SQL Server, make sure you remember your SQL Server logins. If you forgot the SA password or mistakenly disable the SA account, there are also ways for you to unlock SA account in SQL Server.

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Posted in SQL Server, Tips & Tricks

Tags: disable Windows Authentication remove windows authentication sql server authentication

SQL Server Management Studio Saved Password

May 2nd, 2014 by Admin

Is there a way to recover or retrieve the stored passwords in SQL Server Management Studio? How to clear the saved login for SQL Server Management Studio? SQL Server Management Studio always forgets the password to all the servers you connect even if you do have the “Remember password” checked?

management-studio-password

In this article we’ll explain how to fix all these problems you might have with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

Where are SQL Server Management Studio passwords saved?

In SQL Server Management Studio 2005, all credentials are stored in the mru.dat file. However, SQL Server Management Studio 2008 and higher versions save the logins in the SqlStudio.bin file. Here are the default locations of SQL Server Management Studio stored passwords:

SQL Server Management Studio 2014:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\12.0\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2012:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\11.0\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2008:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\SqlStudio.bin

SQL Server Management Studio 2005:

In Windows 8/7/Vista: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\mru.dat
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\mru.dat

If you want to clear / remove the remembered login and password list in SQL Server Management Studio, simply delete the SqlStudio.bin or mru.dat file.

How to Recover stored passwords in SQL Server Management Studio?

If you open the SqlStudio.bin file with a text editor, you can find out the server names and login for the saved connections easily. However, the passwords are not stored in plain text.

Currently there is no any password recovery tools out there that can decrypt the stored passwords in SqlStudio.bin. If you’ve forgotten your password, you should just reset it on the server. SQL Server Password Changer is a reliable tool that can also help you unlock / reset sa password in SQL Server.

SQL Server Management Studio not saving password?

It seems to be a known issue with SQL Server Management Studio but to date I have not seen a fix. I also have experienced this problem on numerous occasions. However there is a simple workaround for this problem. Try to delete the SqlStudio.bin or mru.dat file and the “Remember password” function should work. I have done this on two different PCs with no problems, and its working.

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Posted in SQL Server, Tips & Tricks

Tags: clear SQL Server Management Studio password recover SQL Server Management Studio password SQL Server Management Studio can't remember password SQL Server Management Studio password