HowTo: Crack a Windows 7 / XP or Vista Password With Ophcrack Live CD

Ophcrack is a Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables. It is a very efficient implementation of rainbow tables done by the inventors of the method. It comes with a GTK+ Graphical User Interface and runs on Windows, Mac OS X (Intel CPU) as well as on Linux.

There is also article and more screen shots at Lifehacker:
Extremely impressed at the ease and speed with which the Ophcrack Live CD cracked my Windows admin password when I tested it out last a few weeks ago, I thought it might be useful to throw together a quick guide detailing how to use this powerful little utility.

Crack a MS- Windows 7 / XP / Vista password with Ophcrack Live CD

Crack a MS- Windows 7 / XP / Vista password with Ophcrack Live CD

Whether you need to recover the lost password to a Windows account, you're looking to ensure that your passwords are secure, or you're a super l33t h4x0r, the Ophcrack Live CD is a pretty useful tool.

135 thoughts on “HowTo: Crack a Windows 7 / XP or Vista Password With Ophcrack Live CD

  1. Agent Soul

    Does this crack vista passwords? I got a few of them that need to be reset but dont have the time to reformat them to get them working again.

    Reply
    1. drew

      i got mine to work, when it shows you the two choices and everyone keeps typing them in where it says 0 or 1, dont type anything except for 0 or 1 and it worked for me on a Dell Studio Dual Core, thought i could help

      Reply
  2. alijah mohammad

    it is very self explanotory. you boot from disc, and it cracks passwords automatically. very simple my friends. very simple.

    Reply
    1. bimo

      unfortunately, ophcrack didn’t recover any of my passwords… and the one that I knew was only 9 alpha-numeric chars. I was quite disappointed with it (even though the interface is nice)

      Reply
  3. Melvin

    i downloaded the Ophcrack.iso file and burn into a cd disc.
    I did try to boot up the pc with the disc, but it seem not booting from the disc.
    my pc did looking for a while on the disc and continue to boot from my harddisk.
    Is there anything that i miss out?

    Reply
    1. Nihaal

      I had same problem, The trick is, to not use your windows/vista burning program. Get a different program, any, then it’ll work

      Reply
  4. dave

    i used this OPH live cd with vista and its couldnt crack my password, my xp one cracked all the users, but vista didnt get cracked????

    Reply
  5. JOHN

    does ophcrack require a regular cd-r or a dvd cd? which is best? also, do i boot from the pph cd or put in at a certain time?

    Reply
    1. steve

      I most definitely used a DVD-R and it worked wonderfully. Just set the write speed to the slowest that your program has and you shouldn’t have any errors if the version you have is clean. If it still doesn’t work, search around and download it form a different site than you used the first time.

      Reply
  6. Jade J'adore

    once the .iso file is downloaded would I need to burn it onto the cd/dvd useing a burn image program or just copy/paste file onto disk? Thanks! -JJ

    Reply
    1. Raju

      hello,
      i download ophcrack iso file and burn in CD by Nero sucessfully.
      -i boot my computer from this cd
      -the software works ok
      - but i cannot crack the password
      -plz help me
      -send me the step by step by step procedure via e-mail

      Reply
      1. Marina

        Hello,
        I dont know it works on Vista, I tried several times but no password found but when i tried it on Linux, it works. so not sure if it is because of Vista or the program!

        Reply
  7. matt

    a couple questio0ns answered…
    1. there is a special version for vista. just google search “ophcrack live cd vista download”
    2.u do have to burn it with a cd burn program. i recommend imgburn
    3.cd-r or dvd-r it doesnt matter it fits on both
    4.to make sure it boots from disk do these two things
    -make sure u burn it do a disk using cd burn program and not just copy-pasting files onto disk
    -go into ur bios and make sure the order of boot puts cd a higher priority than hard disk
    5.i think u have to install tables or something?

    Reply
  8. susan

    Can anyone pass me please the link to download the ophcrack livecd for widows vista? i downloaded ophcrack 2.3.1 but it didnt work. Please help me, I really need your help, I have essential information in the system I cant loose. Thanks! SUSAN

    Reply
  9. ralphieboy

    kernal panic – not syncing: Attemped to kill the idle task – this what I got on the post after selecting a mode with Ophcrack vista for Win Premium.. and downloaded the file twice and burned it twice.. got the same message..
    oh yeah, i m using a virtual machine… it shouldn’t matter.. for my xp ophcrack Cd works great

    Reply
  10. Maria

    Hey with the Vista verson 2.3.1 …. when i load the ISO cd it comes up with a comand promt box which requrestes you to enter the portion you want to crack… what are you ment to do here because whatever i enter it comes up with an error… and then it loads a desktop screen with Slitaz…. is this ment to happen? is this happening to anyone else

    Reply
  11. Michael Armstrong

    If you forget the administrator’s password but still can log on Windows with other user names that have administrative privileges, you may follow the instructions below:

    Right click the computer icon on your desktop, select Manage, find Local Users and Groups, unfold Users folder, right click Administrator, click Set password… in the menu comes up. Click Proceed in the dialog, in the pop-up, enter a New Password and confirm it. Your administrator’s password is successfully reset.

    Guest account may help to log onto Windows, but it has no privilege for you to do the above to reset the administrator’s password.

    If you forgot all user passwords and failed to log onto Windows, there is no other way but to format the OS and reinstall Windows, or resort to sort of software tools to remove the password and log onto Windows. These programs cost some bucks, but are worthy and better than to reinstall the OS causing consequences. The most popular programs are Windows Password Reset 6.0 etc. Generally, these programs are easy to use though turn out to be a scary command prompt to newbie. But do relax and you can fully manipulate. Let’s take Windows Password Reset 6.0 for example. You prepare a blank CD, burn the program onto the CD, boot the locked computer from the CD, come to initiate the program, locate the user name, and proceed to remove its password – all are at ease.

    Reply
  12. paarthaa

    two days before i unfortunately set my password in vista……but i can login into my laptop with those passwords….and i heard about ophcrack and tried for cracking the passwords….but the result i got was “not found” in “nt pwd” column….. what can i do now……..

    Reply
    1. crazy dude

      I had same problem. took me 15 minutes or so to crack then it showed “not found” I was like !!!!!

      Reply
  13. Diana

    I burned OPH 3.2.1 Vista Live to DVD and booted up. It ran through it’s processes and after about 20 minutes, none of the 3 passwords on my machine were found. What puzzles me is that I KNOW that 2 of the 3 passwords are simple (short alpha/numric only, no characters.) So, is there something more that I need to be doing besides just running the program?

    Reply
    1. Chuckles

      Yes, live cd vista uses tables or should i say table– vista free table. It can’t hack more than basic passwords containing a charset (403cf58178d7272a48819b47ca8b2e6b) password length unk. The vista special table can be downloaded it contains a charset (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ) password length 7 crack or charset (0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz) password length 8 crack but this will cost ya $. Hope this helps.

      Reply
  14. Guss

    I tried installing ophcrack 2.3.1 live CD for vista
    After booting, and loading the cd and starting ophcrack, I get a launch.sh screen showing:
    Table found
    /mnt/hda….etc
    Found one partition thats contains hashes:
    /mnt/sda2/windows/system32/config
    starting ophcrack
    A Problem occured while reading the SAM file found in /mnt/sda2/windows/system32/config.

    press any key to exit….

    Is theer a way to crack the PW on Vista or not??
    any help is highly appreciated, I don’t want to fomrat the drive at this stage

    pls help
    Thanks
    Guss

    Reply
  15. Duck

    Sort of the same problem here guys. I get two partitions and it wants me to select one. Every time it asks me to select a partition to crack, i type the extensive directory and it gives me some error about not finding it. and says press any key to exit. how do i tell it the Partition to crack? it detects 2 partitions for me. and neither seem to work once i type the extension listed above.

    Reply
  16. bombermanneo

    Reset /crack/hack/recovery windows password/admin password/ vista password with windows password Recovery tool 3.0

    1. Log onto a computer that can link to the Internet. Download Windows Password Recovery Tool 3.0 from site: sn.im/recoverwindowspassword
    for Windows XP, Vista, 2003, 2000, 2008 and decompress it on that PC. Note that: there is a .ISO file. Burn the .ISO file to a CD.
    2.Get out the newly created CD and insert it to the locked computer. IT IS SHAREWARE.
    3.Re-boot the locked computer and then follow the process of instructions. Just after a few steps, the old password will be removed.
    4.Set new password:
    Step 1: Open the “Control Panel
    Step 2: Click the “User Account
    Step 3: Select the account you wanna set a new password.
    Step 4: Click “Changing Account ” and “Set Up Password”, then fill out the form as listed. Click “Create Password”.

    Reply
  17. Adam

    hi everyone i see you are having some issues using ophcrack on vista i had a few issues also i fixed it some of you dont seem to have downloaded the table the table is not downloaded on install you must google it and find a talbe to download it will come in a zip file you must download WINRAR from google then extract the table file to a folder on your desktop then open ophcrack click on tables, install, and find the file highlight it then click ok

    once youve done that the table will be recognized by ophcrack and then click on “crack” and it will start going through the table.

    if you cant even login you dont know the password you could try the live cd or if you have a graphing calculator there is a way to crack the password with it you need a computer hook up though and a small program must be installed i am pretty sure on the calculator itself
    this is on youtube

    on vista i am not sure yet currently i am using an XP machine when i get a chance i will test it on my laptop which runs on vista.

    Reply
  18. ved prakash sharma

    i have vista live cd but
    how can i use it
    i try to use and this cd open with graph. mode but i can’t break vista password
    so plz reply how to use…

    Reply
  19. Stan

    Need help, everytime I reboot with CD in, everything goes fine, until launch.Sh pops up, it shows two partitions, 0. and 1. everytime i try to type their paths, it says a problem has occurred. Pretty much the same problem as Duck…. this is really really frustrating.

    Reply
  20. Tshetum Dorji

    I have used both ophcrack-xp-livecd and ophcrack-vista-livecd but it is displaying that password is not found…… Is there any solution to crack the password…… Please help me. Even I have used offline NT Password and Register editor, I tried to clear the password of the particular account. But when I logged in using same user account it is not working ……… Is there any soultion…….. please help me.
    thank you in advance………

    Reply
  21. groovey

    i am using ophcrack , i dont understand the code.. can anyone read?
    IQ conv Codec::convert from unicode:using ASDII for conversion iconv_open failed
    QI conv Codec::convert to unicode:using ASCII for conversion,iconv_open failed
    /home/tux/launch.sh: line 100: 1661 killed ophcrack-d/-t$tables_inline-w$found/-n$numcpu-o/temp/ophcrack.txt $opts then press any key to exit..
    can anyone read this? is there something in there im missing? plz help thankz!

    Reply
  22. arthur

    @ duck , stan.
    you can solve it by choosing both options, i had the problem too and tried both options, eg. 01

    Reply
  23. John

    Hey i have a question, i used ophcrack vist live cd on my vista computer, but when it was dont searching, it said the passwords were “Not found”. I dont know what to do now. anyone know plz plz email me:(

    Reply
  24. Phil

    hi to all ophcrack users! everytime when i try to boot my pc from the cd it works. but then ophcrack offers me 4 possibilities: 1: Ophcrack Graphic mode – automatic
    2: Ophcrack Graphic mode – manual
    3: Ophcrack Graphic mode – low ram
    4: Ophcrack Text mode

    which one of them do i have to take, that ophcrack starts to show me the passwords of the users as seen on all the youtube videos? everytime i click at the first for example there appears a brown screen that looks similar to the windows start screen and its written “ophcrack live cd
    running on slitaz
    os”
    on it. in the middle you can see a comand promt box which requrestes you to enter the partition you want to crack… what are you ment to do here because whatever i enter it comes up with an error?

    Please can anyone help me?

    Reply
    1. Nihaal

      Most people like Graphic mode (Either one, automatic bttr for beginners, iguess). But if graphic doesn’t work for you, sometimes you get error, use text mode.

      Reply
  25. michel

    Hi,
    I try ophcrack liveCD for vista but its output that the cant find the passowrd of windows vista.
    Please can someone can help me?

    regards

    Reply
  26. RAHAT

    Yesterday i unfortunately set my password in vista……but i can login into my laptop with those passwords….and
    i heard about ophcrack and tried for cracking the passwords….but the result i got was “not found” in “nt pwd” admin but another user pass show this laptop?
    column….. what can i do now……..

    can u help me?Plase….

    Reply
  27. mukesh

    hello,
    i download ophcrack iso file and burn in CD by Nero sucessfully.
    -i boot my computer from this cd
    -the software works ok
    - but i cannot crack the password
    -plz help me
    -send me the step by step by step procedure via e-mail

    Reply
  28. Ramesh

    hi…
    i am trying to crack my administrator’s password but it show “not found “.

    what to do now.

    Reply
  29. mike

    when i boot from cd i get message saying operating system not found. does thids mean the program did not burn and how can i fix this? program was burned using active@isoburner. also have free easy burner. please send detailed instructions to e mail. thank you much and kindly.

    Reply
  30. Marcus

    I have burnt the “Ophcracklive CD” to a disk and the file type is .OSI however when I load the disk into my Laptop – it continues to go to the XP professional login ( the password I cannot remember) Please Help!!!!

    Reply
  31. feanor

    I burned ophcrack-xp-livecd-2.3.1.iso some days ago. Today with it i cracked user password on Windows 7.
    It was four digit number….

    Reply
  32. Brad

    Hi,
    I’m having problems with my ophcrack on Vista Home Basic. The program starts fine, then after selecting one of the options, loads up all the white text, but then suddenly stops and no longer loads, meaning I”m stuck on the screen with all the white text.
    Please help,
    thanks.

    Reply
  33. mikester

    hi i have windows vista and i use power iso and deamon tools can i burn oph crack to a virtual drive instead of an actuall cd?

    Reply
  34. mousie

    well i got downloaded tha iso file but its cummin up as slitaz insteade of slax but it telling me sumthin bout a partition to crack wat should i do

    Reply
  35. Kerrie

    I have had someone change my Administrative password on my Acer computer, as a joke….and they forgot since the liquor is gone. I have downloaded Ophcrack as a fixer..but how do I get this to download automatically from disk. I have it to boot from disk on main menu..but it’s not starting process.

    Reply
  36. Richard

    I am new to Ophcrack, downloaded it, written it on the cd, boots ok! now where do I go from there, I tried it on GUI mode it is something like an Linux operating system with spiders on it. i want to crack my windows 2003 server password.

    please help …………….

    Reply

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