Hello Lloyd, Monday, October 11, 2010, 11:40:06 AM, you wrote: LH> My son passed away unexpected last week and I have his computer in LH> which he has password protected. Is there anyway to override the LH> password and get into the computer? Sorry to hear of your loss, you don't expect to outlive your children :-( As for the password - we'd need to know at what stage this appears. If it's a BIOS password ( i.e. before Windows even starts ) then it's a different matter to a normal login password screen in Windows. If it's not a BIOS password there's always the option of using an Ubuntu Live CD to access the drive contents as this ignores passwords on Windows and will only fail if the HD has been encrypted - if that's happened then you cannot remove the password nor discover it by running 3rd party programs anyway and the data is lost without the correct password. Encrypted drives are about as secure as you can get and that's perhaps as it should be !! Hopefully it will just be a 'standard' passworded account and that's not going to stop access to the files, either using Ubuntu as above or trying to log into Safe Mode and the Administrator account where any user's password can be reset - you get a warning that encrypted data will be lost as well as the user's saved passwords file. On a side note: It's a reminder that with many of us now putting our financial affairs on computers the question of passwords is something that those left behind will need to face some day. There are ways of making passwords available after you are gone, even if it's a sealed envelope lodged with the bank - but changes are a pain to managed !! PS - rather than destroy the HD why not take it apart and mount the platters inside in a frame. It would be a high tech memorial ?? -- Best regards, Barry mailto:[email protected] MicroSoft Free Zone running Ubuntu 10.04 'Lucid' 64bit

At 10:38 AM 10/11/2010, you wrote: >Hopefully it will just be a 'standard' passworded account and that's >not going to stop access to the files, either using Ubuntu as above or >trying to log into Safe Mode and the Administrator account where any >user's password can be reset - you get a warning that encrypted data >will be lost as well as the user's saved passwords file. > >On a side note: It's a reminder that with many of us now putting our >financial affairs on computers the question of passwords is something >that those left behind will need to face some day. There are ways of >making passwords available after you are gone, even if it's a sealed >envelope lodged with the bank - but changes are a pain to managed !! > >PS - rather than destroy the HD why not take it apart and mount the >platters inside in a frame. It would be a high tech memorial ?? Thanks Barry, It is a standard password. I will try the Safe-Mode first. Lloyd ____________________________________________________________ Mortgage Rates Hit 3.25% If you owe under $729k you probably qualify for Obama's Refi Program http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4cb3254e4a28520d1edst05duc