Reset Forgotten Windows 8 Password without Disk

Forgot your Windows 8 administrator password and don't have a CD or USB drive at hand? In this tutorial we'll show you a simple way to reset Windows 8 password without disk. Let's proceed.

Of course, if you do have a PCUnlocker Live CD, you can reset your password the easy way with a few mouse clicks. The following trick works with local account only. If you're using a Microsoft Account to login to your computer, you can also use PCUnlocker to reset lost Microsoft Account password.

How to Reset Forgotten Windows 8 Password without Disk?

1. Turn on your computer. While the computer is coming up and you can see it saying "Starting Windows". Hold down the Power button for at least 5 seconds to force power off your computer.
2. When a sudden power loss is detected, the next time you turn on your computer and it will ask you if you want to launch startup repair or start normally. Choose the Launch Startup Repair (recommended) menu.
3. Startup Repair will boot up and take a little while. When it asks you if you want to restore your computer to an earlier point, click Cancel.
4. The Startup Repair Tool begins analyzing startup log files for clues as to the source of the problem and then launches a series of diagnostic tests to determine the cause of the startup failure. After a long time, you will get a dialog saying that Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically! Click on View problem details.
5. Now scroll down to the end of the Detail Report. Click on the last link to read Microsoft's offline privacy statement.
6. Notepad will come up with the privacy statement in it. Click on the File menu and then Open.
7. In the File Open dialog box, change the Files of type option to All Files. Browse to the Sticky Keys application – C:\windows\system32\sethc.exe. Rename this file as a backup file: I named it "sethc-copy".
8. Now find the cmd.exe file in the same folder. This is your Command Prompt. rename it to sethc.exe. Then close out of all the dialog boxes and Finish, so that the computer restarts.
9. Once you get to the Windows login screen, hit the Shift key 5 times and it will open the Command Prompt window instead of the Sticky Keys application.
10. Now to reset the password – just type the following command, replacing the username and password with the combination you want:
    reset user top-password.com 123456
11. Close the Command Prompt and you should be able to log on to Windows with your new password.

That's it! You've successfully reset Windows 8 password without a CD or USB drive.