Showing posts with label Windows Hacking. Show all posts

Today, we’ll take it one step further and look at the steps involved in recovering lost data from a formatted drive. Then, we’ll discuss what to do to keep yourself out of these predicaments to begin with. Before we can begin, there are a few basics we need to go over.The Basics That You Need to Know When Using Data Recovery Software

If possible do a back-up before you try the recovery

Don’t install the software on the drive that has the problem

Be sure to save the recovered files someplace other than the problem drive

Installing the recovery software on the unstable drive could write on top of your files. This is a no-brainer if you are trying to recover removable storage like the below example.
In this case you don’t have to do anything special. However, there is an extra step if you want to recover an internal drive.
When recovering an internal drive, you will have to remove the unstable hard drive and connect to a stable computer with a stable operating system. I have dealt with this in the past and had decided to purchase a case that turns my hard drive into an USB connected external hard drive.
This is the cleanest and easiest way but has an additional cost (approximate $10-30depending on quality and appearance of the case) and slows down the scan because it is running through USB. Buying this is unavoidable in most instances when you are trying to recover a laptop hard drive.
If it is a tower you are attempting to recover, you can bust open a second tower and plug in the unstable hard drive. Then you should see the unstable drive show up in (My) Computer or in Disk Management.
You may, or may not, be able to see some of the files you are looking for without any recovery software at all.
A Step-by-Step Example of How to Use a Data Recovery Product
If you remember from my last article, all the files were absent from my frantic mother-in-law’s USB flash drive.I am still not sure exactly what happened to it, but my theory is that a coworker had inadvertently done a quick format, perhaps when hastily clicking through prompts. The actual name of the drive was changed to “public”, along with the fact that all of her files had gone missing, hinted me to this conclusion.I knew right away that using a data recovery program was the route for me. There was no physical damage, and system restore was not an option.

As mentioned last time, I already had GetDataBack for NTFS from a previous mishap. I decided to use their FAT version too because I was familiar with the software.

If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have chosen that product. The reason is not that it is a bad product; actually it worked quite well and was rather intuitive. I just wish I had paid for one product that did both file systems.

Now let’s get started. I have recreated the problem and will take you step by step through recovering the files.
I decided to try out a different program this time. They have very different GUIs, but the results were the same. Here are the steps I took using Recover My Files on a USB flash drive from a computer runningVista Professional.

Have the drive you want to recover attached to a computer with an operating system. In my case I simply had to plug the USB flash drive into my computer.

Step 2

Download and install the free version of Recover My Files. Don’t forget that you need to install it someplace other than the drive that you want to recover.

Step 3

Start Recover My Files. You have 4 general options.
The first two are for files that you accidentally deleted. Use the second two if you want to recover after a format. I chose Complete Format Recover and then clicked next.

Step 4

Next an information box comes up that tells you when to choose a physical drive and when to pick a logical one. The program tells you to choose a physical drive if you have simply reformatted, and choose a logical one if you have already installed something on the drive.
The logical version of the drives will show up with their normal names. The physical version will be numbered.
I chose physical number 1. You should never be choosing number 0 because that would mean you are trying to recover the main (boot) drive that you are running the program from. Click next.

Step 5

The next window asks you for the main types of files that you want to recover. It seems like the point of this step is simply to confuse you or worry you unnecessarily.

GetDataBack didn’t have a step like this. I’m sure it is for a very important super efficient algorithm. You don’t need to rack your brain trying to remember all of the file types you had on the disk. It assures you that all of your files will be recovered even if you don’t select all your file types.

Allow for about an hour to scan 50 GB of space or even longer if you are scanning via USB. The program will maintain a list of how many files found so far in the small window, and break down the list by file type in the left pane of the main window under the file type view.

Step 6

When the scan is done you see a list of all your recovered files.
In my case the files lost their names, but they open fine. You can preview them in the lower right part of the window. Click the check box on the files you want to save, or click the box next to the name of the drive to select all the files.

Step 7

Next, click the save button. If you only have a trial version, this will be the time when you will need to obtain and enter your license key.
Direct the program to save the files anywhere other than the drive you recovered. Once your files are saved you can close the Recover My Files Program.

Can't remember your Windows user password? As you all know without knowing the current password we are unable to change Windows password. Today I am going to tell you two easy tricks to change Windows password without knowing the old password. These tricks work on Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP.

Option 1: Change Windows Password from Command Prompt

This is an especially handy trick if you want to change a password on an account but you've forgotten the old password (going through the Control Panel can require confirmation of the old password). You need to have admin access to perform this change from the command line.

Open an elevated Command Prompt. Click on Start button, go to All Programs ->Accessories and right click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator" from context menu. In Windows 8, you can do this by simply pressing Windows Key + X + A.
You can use the net user command to change Windows password easily, without supplying the old password:
```
net user username  new_password
```
Replace username with your Windows account name, and new_password with your desired new password.

If you're totally locked out of Windows, you're unable to run any program such as command line tool to change your password. In this situation, you need to use a bootable media to change Windows password.

Change MAC address, or the Media Access Control address is a unique identifier assigned to the network card in your Windows 10 PC. The MAC address for every hardware device is unique because if there were two devices in a network with the same MAC address, there would be no way to tell them apart from one another. While the IP address of every system on a network is usually dynamically assigned, the MAC address is fixed and remains the same. In fact, there is no way to change the MAC address of your network card. However, you can fool your operating system to broadcast a different MAC address to the network, effectively changing it. So, here is how to spoof MAC address on Windows devices:

Find Your MAC Address in Windows

Before you get to change your Windows MAC address, you should first find out what your actual MAC address is. This is useful, in case you make a mistake, and end up having to restore your MAC address to the default value. Just follow the steps below in order to find out the MAC address of your Windows PC:

Launch “Command Prompt“.
In the Command Prompt window, type “ipconfig /all”.
You will see quite a lot of information about various network interfaces installed on your Windows PC. Scroll down, until you see the one that doesn’t say “Media Disconnected“. In my case, that’s “Wireless LAN Adapter WiFi“. The value next to “Physical Address” is your MAC address. Note it down.

Change MAC Address in Windows

Spoof address in Windows is relatively easy. Just follow the steps below, in order to change MAC address of your Windows PC:

Go to “Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center“.
Here, click on “Adapter Settings“.
Right-click on the adapter you need to change the MAC address for, and go to “Properties”.

In the Properties dialog box that opens up, click on “Configure”.

Switch to the “Advanced” tab, and click on “Network Address”. Select the radio button next to “Value”, and enter the new MAC address in the text field. Once done, click on “Ok”.

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Easily Change MAC Address on Windows

You can use this method to easily change MAC address on Windows devices. Spoof MAC address of a device can be helpful if you’re trying to go around MAC address based blocking on a network router. However, if the router is using a whitelist of MAC addresses to allow access to the network, then you’ll have to ensure that you use a MAC address that is in the whitelist for the router. On the other hand, if the router is using a blacklist of MAC addresses, you just need to use a MAC address that’s not on that blacklist, which is relatively easier to do.

So, have you ever had to spoof MAC address on your Windows PC? How did you do it? Let us know in the comments section below, along with any other methods you might know to change MAC address in Windows.

Crack Windows Password using CMD

Crack windows password-Protecting your Windows machine with a password is a must. It’s a great layer of security disabling unauthorized people from using your computer. But there are times when your own security layer restricts you from using your Windows OS. Probably, because you aren’t worthy of it. You fail to enter the correct password because you were absent-minded when the last time you changed your password.

You can take the help of the password hint on the login screen. But what if it doesn’t help you. An effective solution to reset Windows password is to use the password reset disk. And just like me, you didn’t create the disk in the first place. Now, you’re left with an option to reinstall Windows on your computer. Well, you can do so if you don’t have any important data stored on your machine.

What if you have something important, You don’t want to loose them. So, there is a workaround by which you can crack Windows password. You can use Windows CMD and sticky keys to crack Windows password and gain access to your computer without formatting it.

See Also: View Password Hidden Behind Dots & Asterisks

Requirements

Drive letter of your Windows installation. For instance, it is C in my case.
Windows installation disk or Windows repair disk.
The most important, you shouldn’t be able to recall your Windows password.

See Also: Crack WiFi password in Android

How To Crack Windows Password Using CMD?

Use the Windows repair disk to boot your computer.
Choose your preferred language.
Note: The method was tried on Windows 10. The repair disk options may differ for other Windows versions.
Click Troubleshoot.

4. Click Command Prompt

5.In the CMD window, type the following command and press Enter:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\

6. Now, type the following command and press Enter:

copy /y c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

Note: You will see the Overwrite c:\sethc.exe? confirmation if you have done this method in the past. In this case, type All and press Enter.

7. To quit CMD, type exit and press Enter. Restart your computer.

8. At the login screen where you enter your password, press Shift key for five times. A CMD window will show up.

9. Type the following command and press Enter:

net user username password

Important: Here, the username is your user account name and password is the new password you want to set. If your username is ironman and new password Jarvis, the command will be:
net user ironman Jarvis

10. Now press Enter.

Exit the command prompt.
You can login to your Windows machine using the new password.

So, in the process, what you basically did is swapped the SETHC.exe with CMD.exe. TheSETHC.exe is used to trigger the sticky key accessibility feature in Windows. Replacing it with cmd.exe starts the command prompt which can be used to change the administrator password.

Important: In our case, the method only worked for local account. We were not able to reset Windows password for the Microsoft account we used on our machine. We tested the above method on Windows 10.

See Also: Find WiFi Passwords using CMD

This way, you can crack Windows password and have a sense of relieve. If you are concerned that someone can type those commands and gain access to your machine, you disable the USB ports on your machine.

If you have something to add, tell us in the comments below.

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How To Recover Lost Data From a Formatted Drive in 7 Steps