How to Access Windows Partition

General system
#1

I have an old laptop that dual boots Windows 7 and Endeavouros. I need to access the Windows 7 partition to reset my admin password after booting into Endeavouros. How can I do that?

#2

Hi and welcome to the forums :slight_smile:

So, to clarify are you looking to access your Windows partition from within Linux, or are you saying you can no longer boot into Windows now that Linux is installed and would like to be able to get back into it?

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#3

Thanks for the prompt reply @alenbasic

I want to access my Windows partition from Linux.

#4

So you’ll need to use the mount command from the terminal and it’ll look something like:

mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

Where X is the drive letter and Y is the partition number. Note, if you’re using and NVMe drive then instead of /dev/sdXY it’ll be something like /dev/nvmenXpY

To find what is the right partition you can use lsblk -f and look out for the one with the filesystem type of NTFS.

Lastly, keep in mind to mount you’ll likely need to mount with the root user, so you’ll need to prefix the mount command with sudo. In other words:

sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

Once mounted, the Windows partition will be available from the /mnt folder.

#5

Just wondered if the windows’ partition doesn’t show in the left pane of the file manager you are using? If it does you can also mount it from your file manager.

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#6

Various utilities exist for this purpose of changing Windows password without actually booting the system - which one will fit your use case is impossible to know.

You will need to mount the device then edit the sam database using

chntpw

Install from the official Arch repos

sudo pacman -Syu chntpw
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#7

Not sure if you’ll need this but I have to install it to access one of my ntfs USB hard drives

ntfs-3g

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#8

There are other simple way to reset admin password for Widnows 7.
It is best to use a password reset disk,which are specially used to remove or reset login/admin password for Windows 7,without any reset disks,try using some third-party software.

#9

Welcome!

welcome

#10

About using some third-party software to reset Windows 7 password,here are the best tools for you to choose.
Ophcrack.
https://ophcrack.sourceforge.io/download.php
John the Ripper.


PassGeeker for Windows.
https://www.passgeeker.com/reset-windows-7-admin-password.html
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