How to Reset Forgotten Windows 11/10 Password with USB

As a windows user, did you ever forget the password and had tough time logging in to your computer ?. While protecting the account is really important, remembering password is tough for many users. Once you forget the administrator password, you cannot reset it easily. In this post I will be introducing a fantastic tool called PC Unlocker. This tool can be used to reset windows password with USB stick.

PCUnlocker is an excellent tool to bypass / reset forgotten administrator. You could also use the tool to reset other user passwords. The tool works on all the popular OS such as Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2016 / 2012 / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 and Active Directory (AD) servers. Most all even if your account is disabled, this tool can enable the account.

PC Unlocker Tool

The PC Unlocker tool comes in 3 different editions. The comparison chart is here and you can go with the edition that suits your requirements. The tool when downloaded comes in .ISO format. Therefore to use this tool you could burn the ISO either to CD or USB device. Here is a tool that burns the ISO to a CD or USB device.

Note – If the hard drive is encrypted with BitLocker, the files will be inaccessible from a boot disk. You need to decrypt your hard drive with BitLocker recovery key, before using PCUnlocker to reset Windows password.

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How to Reset Windows Password with USB Stick

We will now see how to reset windows password with USB stick. Note that we need another computer to perform the below steps. Insert a blank CD or a USB flash drive with at least 1GB of disk space into your computer. Download the full version of PCUnlocker, the link can be found in your order confirmation email. Extract the zip file to a folder and you will find pcunlocker.iso and readme.txt files.

Launch the ISO2Disc utility, click Browse and choose the pcunlocker.iso file. Choose the Target as Burn to USB Flash Drive. Choose the USB drive letter, Partition Style as MBR and click Start Burn.

The USB drive is formatted and file system is changed to FAT32. Once the ISO is burned to USB device click OK.

To reset the user account password, plug-in the USB device to the computer, restart the computer. Enter the BIOS by pressing F2 or Del key. Under Boot options, set removable devices with boot sequence priority over the hard drive. Save the settings and reboot the computer.

On the next boot the computer will load the WinPE operating system and then start the PCUnlocker utility. Select Reset local Admin/User password. The utility automatically selects the SAM file from config folder. The next step is to select the user account from list. Choose the Administrator account and click Reset Password. Notice that for account Administrator the password is “unknown“. This will change once we reset the password.

Click Reset Password and on confirmation dialog click Yes.

Wow !! that was so easy. The Administrator password reset is complete. Click OK.

The Administrator password value is changed from unknown to blank. This means the password of the account is set to blank. Click on Restart button to reboot the computer and remove the CD/USB drive. You can then log back into your computer without a password.