Can't Remember Password, Can't Log In

[matthewfarrand]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 with Windows 7 Home Premium installed. I got the computer from a friend who doesn't know his password. So I am stuck at the log-in screen. All I want is to do is reset the password. After searching Google, it seems the best option would be to reboot from a disk that has Windows 7 on it or is a "Windows 7 Repair Disk." But the only disk I have to reboot from is called "Drivers and Utilities." I've rebooted from it several times, and when I do it asks me if I want to run a diagnostics test or not. If I say yes it has two kinds of tests, neither are helpful to me. If I say no, it brings me to a command prompt screen with a message that begins, "A ramdisk drive is available for this boot cycle as C:". I've tried typing things like chkdsk, or C:\dir or what-not, and keep getting errors of some sort. (I've never used command prompt before; so I may not be typing these correctly.)

What should I do? Again, all I want to do is reset the password. If I have to reinstall Windows 7 or even erase the information on the computer, that is OK, but not necessary.

[giardmi09]

If you don't have the recovery disc and you don't want to re-install then a fairly easy way to reset the password can be found here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-a-Windows-Password-With-TRK.

If you can get your hands on a Windows 7 recovery disc then I can walk you through using that method also.

If you have another machine running the same version of Windows 7 then you can use that machine to create a recovery disc.

[Geek-9pm]

There is a general policy here on CH, and some other forums, members should not help people defeat password protested computers.
Neverheles, CH does have some information about this issue.

Password problem? Read this CH article:
[ur=http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000172.htm]Lost or forgotten Windows password.[/url]

[matthewfarrand]

Thanks for the help. For some reason TRK did not work for me; but I followed the link posted by Geek-9pm and did some searching for a good bootable password crack program: ophcrack. Stupid me, the password was the same as the user name!