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ThinkPad Helix Windows 8 Tablet Password Reset

June 10th, 2014 by Admin

Forgot Windows 8 login password on your ThinkPad Helix tablet? How to obtain admin access to your tablet without restoring it to factory settings? ThinkPad Helix is preloaded with UEFI firmware instead of traditional BIOS. Legacy-based boot media will not boot successfully on UEFI based computer. So here I’m going to show you how to create UEFI bootable USB media and then use it to reset forgotten Windows 8 password on ThinkPad Helix tablet.

Part 1: Create A UEFI Bootable USB Media

  1. Before resetting ThinkPad Helix tablet password, you need to use another computer to make a bootable PCUnlocker USB drive. Simply download the trial version of PCUnlocker Enterprise, unzip the downloaded file and you’ll get an ISO image file called pcunlocker.iso.
  2. Next download and install the freeware ISO2Disc. Run the ISO2Disc program, click on Browse button to select the PCUnlocker ISO image, then choose your USB drive and select GPT partition style. Click on Burn.

    Create a GPT bootable PCUnlocker USB drive

  3. A UEFI bootable USB media will be created in minutes.

Part 2: Reset Windows 8 Password on ThinkPad Helix Tablet

  1. Insert the USB boot media into your ThinkPad Helix tablet.
  2. Turn on the tablet. While the “To interrupt normal startup, press Enter or tap here” message is displayed at the logo screen, press the F12 key or tap the message string to launch the Startup Interrupt Menu, then tap F12 to enter the startup selection menu.

    helix-boot-menu

  3. Select to boot from USB drive. The tablet will then boot from USB media. After a while, you’ll see the PCUnlocker program and it shows you a list of local accounts existing on your ThinkPad Helix tablet.

    Reset Windows Password

  4. Choose a local account and then click Reset Password button, it will reset your forgotten password immediately. If you’re using a Microsoft Account with your ThinkPad Helix tablet, choose the local account associated to your Microsoft account and then reset its password.

If the touchscreen doesn’t respond correctly, you’ll need to install the tablet into the keyboard dock or attach an external keyboard to the tablet. Using the keyboard to perform the password recovery steps conveniently.

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Posted in Tips & Tricks, Windows 8

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How to Remove HP BIOS Password with HP SpareKey

June 9th, 2014 by Admin

How to reset BIOS Password on HP EliteBook 8530p? A forgotten BIOS password isn’t the end of the world. There are many ways to clear or reset a BIOS password, but the easiest method for HP users is to use HP SpareKey, which allows them to remove HP BIOS password without involving IT administrators.

What’s HP SpareKey?

HP SpareKey is a utility that helps you, or the administrator of the computer, recover lost system passwords, such as the power-on, drive lock, or BIOS passwords. When setting up the BIOS Administrator password, remember to enable the HP SpareKey Enrollment which prompts you to provide answers for a sequence of three predetermined personal identification questions.

sparekey-enrollment

The HP SpareKey uses these questions to identify you if you need to reset the passwords. Examples of the personal identification questions presented by HP SpareKey are listed below.

  • What is your mother’s maiden name?
  • What is the name of your first pet?
  • What is your father’s middle name?

How to Remove HP BIOS Password with HP SpareKey?

Forgot the BIOS password on your HP laptop? If you’ve set up HP SpareKey on your HP computer previously, now you can follow these step to remove your lost BIOS password easily:

  1. Turn on the computer and immediately press the ESC key to display the Startup Menu, and then press the F10 to enter BIOS Setup.

    hp-boot-menu

  2. If you have typed your BIOS password incorrectly three times, you’ll be presented with the screen prompting you to press F7 for HP SpareKey Recovery.

    hp-sparekey-recovery

  3. Press F7 key, the HP SpareKey wizard pops up and prompts you for the answers to the three personal identification questions.

    sparekey

  4. If you successfully answer the questions, you are granted access and you can reset the BIOS password.

    sparekey-bios-password

Note: HP SpareKey cannot help you recover a Windows 8/7/Vista administrator account password. It is intended solely to recover system-level passwords. If you need to reset forgotten Windows login password, I recommend you to use the PCUnlocker program.

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How to Reset SQL Server 2008 Password without Reinstalling

June 7th, 2014 by Admin

What to do when the SA account password is lost in SQL Server 2008? You may have faced the issue of losing the SQL Server SA password. Perhaps you followed the security best-practice of removing the built-in\Administrators from the sysadmin server role and now you’ve lost admin access to your SQL Server instance. At this point you may think that the only option is to reinstall SQL Server and attache the database.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to reset SQL Server 2008 (R2) password without reinstalling. SQL Server Password Changer is a great recovery utility that allows you to change SA password that is stored in the master database file (master.mdf). Here’s how.

How to Reset SQL Server 2008 Password without Reinstalling?

  1. Click here to download and install the SQL Server Password Changer program on your computer.
  2. Click the Open File button. Select the SQL Server 2008 master database file (master.mdf). Typically it is located in the folder: c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\.
  3. The program will automatically decrypt the master database file and display all user accounts in your SQL Server. Select the SA account, click the Change Password button. Type a new password and click OK.

    SQL Server Password Recovery

  4. The program will replace the existing password with your new password, and also unlock your SA account if it’s already locked out or disabled. Now start your SQL Server 2008 instance again and you can then log into the SA account with the new password.

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2 Options to Reset Windows 8 Tablet to Factory Settings

June 6th, 2014 by Admin

If your Windows 8 tablet has been infected by a virus or has become slow to the point of being unusable, resetting the tablet to factory settings may be the best and quickest solution. Luckily, Windows 8 has built-in tool to reset your tablet to its original state. In this article I’ll show you 2 options to reset Windows 8 tablet to factory settings.

WARNING: All your documents, pictures, settings, accounts and any other data on your Windows 8 tablet will be deleted while performing factory reset.

Method 1: Reset from within Windows:

  1. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings. If you’re using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, click Settings.
  2. Tap or click Change PC settings.
  3. Tap or click Update and recovery, and then tap or click Recovery.reset-windows-8
  4. Under Remove everything and reinstall Windows, tap or click Get started.

Method 2: Reset from Windows 8 Login Screen

If you’ve lost your password, you may not have to reset your tablet. See unlock Windows 8 password before performing these reset steps:

  1. From the Windows sign-in screen, tap or click the Power icon in the lower right corner of the sign-in screen.
  2. Press and hold the Shift key. (If you’re using the on-screen keyboard, tap or click the Shift key.)
  3. While the Shift key is still pressed, tap or click Restart. After the tablet restarts, the Choose an option screen will display.
  4. Tap or click Troubleshoot.
  5. Tap or click Reset your PC.

If you don’t have a keyboard connected to Windows 8 tablet, you’ll need to use the on-screen keyboard to do these reset steps. From the Windows 8 sign-in screen, tap or click the Ease of access icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, and then tap or click On-Screen Keyboard.

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How to Unlock ASUS VivoBook Windows 8 Password

June 4th, 2014 by Admin

Forgot Windows 8 password to your ASUS VivoBook? How to bypass Windows login password without resetting your laptop to factory settings? ASUS VivoBook comes with UEFI which will prevent you from booting any boot media without UEFI bootloader. In this article I’ll show you how to enable Legacy/CSM boot support in ASUS VivoBook and then unlock your forgotten Windows 8 password with a USB drive.

How to Unlock ASUS VivoBook Windows 8 Password?

First of all, you need to make a USB boot media using an alternate PC. Download the PCUnlocker program and save it to your desktop. The downloaded file is a self-extracting .zip file which contains a WinPE ISO image (pcunlocker.iso). Extract the ISO image and burn it to a USB flash drive using ISO2Disc or Rufus program.

Plug the USB boot media in your ASUS VivoBook. Power on the machine and press F2 key to enter the BIOS Setup. To enable legacy/CSM boot support, enable “Launch CSM” under the Boot tab.

asus-bios

Switch to the Security tab and set “Secure Boot Control” to Disabled. Press F10 to save your changes and exit BIOS.

asus-secure-boot

When the laptop restarts, press ESC key to launch the boot menu. When you get the boot options, choose the USB drive as we want to reset Windows 8 password offline. After a while, the PCUnlocker program will launch and it displays all your Windows 8 user accounts.

Choose a user account and click on “Reset Password” button, it will unlock / reset your forgotten password instantly. Last but not least, disconnect your USB drive and restart your computer. Enter into the BIOS setup again and disable the “Launch CSM” option which you enabled in the step above. You can then sign into Windows 8 without a password! This is how can you unlock ASUS VivoBook easily!

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How to Install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation

June 4th, 2014 by Admin

UEFI was introduced with Windows 8 as a replacement to the BIOS system. In order to benefit from the new UEFI features, here I’ll show you how to install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation.

Requirements:

  • UEFI requires 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems, so you need to prepare a Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
  • VMware Workstation 8, 9 or 10.

Install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation

  1. Start VMware Workstation. Choose File > New > Virtual Machine to begin creating a new virtual machine.
  2. Follow the step-by-step wizard to configure your virtual machine.
  3. Before starting your virtual machine, open the .VMX file of your virtual machine in Notepad and add the following line to it:
    firmware="efi"

    vmware-efi-support

  4. Save the .VMX file. Now start your virtual machine and boot it from Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
  5. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 8.

After Windows 8 installation is complete, you’ll find the virtual hard drive is partitioned with GPT instead of MBR partition table. You’re also unable to boot a UEFI-based virtual machine from a 32-bit Windows 8 ISO image.

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

May 29th, 2014 by Admin

uefiUEFI (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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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?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

    Novo-button

  3. In the BIOS Setup, select the Security tab and change Secure Boot value to Disabled.

    lenovo-secure-boot

  4. Next, on the Boot tab, change the Boot Mode from UEFI to Legacy Support.

    lenovo-boot-mode

    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.

  5. 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.
  6. 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.

  7. 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.
  8. 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

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