- With a DOS boot disk -
1. Copy the NTFSDOS file onto your DOS boot disk.
2. Copy the RAR utility files onto one of your empty floppy disks.
3. Boot your system with the boot disk.
If your system drive uses the FAT32 file
system:
5. From the a: prompt, insert the disk with the RAR utility.
6. Type: Rar32 a -v a:\systemandsam
c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\system32\config\sam
This will copy both the System and SAM files into a compressed file on
your floppy called 'systemandsam.' They should all fit onto the one disk,
but if not, you will be prompted to insert another blank floppy.
7. Now skip down to the section on extracting passwords.
If your system drive uses the NTFS file
system:
8. Type: ntfsdos to detect NTFS formatted drives. The system will
inform you which drive letters are allocated to which drives. Make a note
of the drive letter of your main drive (the one with windows installed on it).
9. Insert the disk with the RAR utility and type:
10. Rar32 a -v a:\systemandsam (drive letter of your main drive as
above):\windows\system32\config\system (drive letter of your main drive as
above):\windows\system32\config\sam
11. This will copy both the System and SAM files into a compressed file on your
floppy called 'systemandsam.' They should all fit onto the one disk, but
if not, you will be prompted to insert another blank floppy.
12. Now skip down to the section on extracting passwords.
- Using a portable Linux CD -
1. These tend to be pretty user friendly, at least compared to most Linux
versions… Just boot from the CD.
2. As most current versions of Linux read NTFS drives as well as FAT32, simply
navigate to the HDA1\windows\system32\config directory from the desktop and copy
the SAM and SYSTEM files to the desktop, then email them to yourself.
From a hard disk you transferred to a new computer
1. Easiest of all. Simply navigate to the (drive
letter)\windows\system32\config directory and copy the SAM and SYSTEM files to
the location you desire.
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