Gaining access to a deceased person's files on a laptop.
Discussion
Hello PH Tech-heads!
Just asking for some advice here, my friend and work colleague's father recently passed away in his sleep and prior to this always said that anything relating to pensions, savings, cash squirrel'd away etc is all on his laptop.
My colleague has tried to get into his laptop and yes you've guessed it it has a password and so can't get in. He has tried all the combinations he thinks might work but to no avail.
I'm fairly competent when it comes to PC's and recently had to buy an external sata to USB 3 box, as one of my hard disk drives was stopping the PC from booting up so unplugged each one until I worked out which one it was, plugged it into the SATA to usb box of tricks and managed to copy all the data from it so happy days.
The drive I copied from though (on my PC) wasn't the C: drive, so I'm thinking If I remove the disk drive from my colleagues laptop and plug it into my box of tricks I might not be able to gain access to the files as it will be the laptops C: - where Windows will be installed?
My colleague seems to think its Windows 7 on the laptop but will check tonight.
Any advice or help much appreciated. I have got him to try and login as the Administrator tonight to see if that works, with a blank password.
For obvious reasons my colleague doesn't want to leave it with some random PC repair shop.
Thanks for any help/advice given
Cheers
Just asking for some advice here, my friend and work colleague's father recently passed away in his sleep and prior to this always said that anything relating to pensions, savings, cash squirrel'd away etc is all on his laptop.
My colleague has tried to get into his laptop and yes you've guessed it it has a password and so can't get in. He has tried all the combinations he thinks might work but to no avail.
I'm fairly competent when it comes to PC's and recently had to buy an external sata to USB 3 box, as one of my hard disk drives was stopping the PC from booting up so unplugged each one until I worked out which one it was, plugged it into the SATA to usb box of tricks and managed to copy all the data from it so happy days.
The drive I copied from though (on my PC) wasn't the C: drive, so I'm thinking If I remove the disk drive from my colleagues laptop and plug it into my box of tricks I might not be able to gain access to the files as it will be the laptops C: - where Windows will be installed?
My colleague seems to think its Windows 7 on the laptop but will check tonight.
Any advice or help much appreciated. I have got him to try and login as the Administrator tonight to see if that works, with a blank password.
For obvious reasons my colleague doesn't want to leave it with some random PC repair shop.
Thanks for any help/advice given
Cheers
Download a Linux live image (Linux Mint is very good for this), copy it to a USB stick and boot from that. You will then be able to access the hard drive and copy the files over.
If you're happier with Windows, you could use Hiren's boot CD on a USB - this also has the possibility to reset the windows user's password.
If all this is Chinese to you, maybe consider taking the laptop to someone who is comfortable doing this.
If you're happier with Windows, you could use Hiren's boot CD on a USB - this also has the possibility to reset the windows user's password.
If all this is Chinese to you, maybe consider taking the laptop to someone who is comfortable doing this.
I would be tempted to image the drive asap before screwing around in case it gets fubar or just dies like it's owner did. 
At least then you will have a backup to try and unlock.
If you get it going it might take several days searching to sort out the financial stuff, anything could happen.
At least then you will have a backup to try and unlock.
If you get it going it might take several days searching to sort out the financial stuff, anything could happen.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff