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ReeceFlag for Australia

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reset lost administrator password for Windows Server 2003 (AD)?

I've been contacted by a local golf course that has lost login access to their Windows 2003 server (suspected cause is a password change by a disgruntled ex-manager).

When I visited the site, they have the password taped to the wall behind the server and it had been working until a few weeks ago.
When they try to login now it says incorrect username or password.

I've tried booting from the UBCD and running the Offline NT Password Editor application and it can see the hard drives (it's a RAID5) and the NTFS partition (DEV/SDA1), but when it tries to mount the partition, it fails with the error:
Failed to read last sector (sector number): invalid argument.   etc etc.  NTFS Probe returned error code 12.  Sorry, cannot continue
User generated image
I'm assuming that it has loaded the correct RAID drivers given that it can see the HDD's and determine the partitions on the RAID volume.  So what is causing this error?

Windows boots OK, but they can't log in.  So surely it can't be an NTFS corruption... can it?
From another computer on the network, they can log in using RDC but the account is not an administrative account so I can't reset any passwords or create a new Local admin account or an AD admin account.

I'd like to reset the Local admin password and/or the AD admin password.  There appear to be a number of other user accounts in the Administrators group, so I'm waiting on the possible creators of those accounts to get back to us with possible passwords, but in regards to the actual "Administrator" account(s), what else can I try?
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cpmcomputers
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I have successfully used Stella pheonix password recovery in these circumstances

Just google it ,not free but it did work
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Hi,

There are few ways to reset the lost admin passwords, please have a look at this article http://www.petri.com/reset_domain_admin_password_in_windows_server_2003_ad.htm which might help you to resolve the issue in this situation.

Cheers
RK
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ASKER

@Rad - That petri article is similar to another I read already (they provide the same steps).  The problem is that Local admin access is required.  If the Local admin password is not known, using the Offline NT Password Editor is suggested.
I tried that first anyway, but ran into the "error 12" issue as mentioned in the question.
SOLUTION
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McKnife
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You can also try Lazesoft Recover My Password Server Edition
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@McKnife...  what do you mean by "copy cmd.exe to utilman.exe"?  Do you mean copy it, then rename it?
Yes.
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Can this be done without the use of a Windows 7/8 DVD?
Ie. from a user account for RDC that doesn't have local admin rights?
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