Password Reset Disk : Windows 7 / Vista

Thank you mate.

The reset dsk is really a misnoma, it's just a very small file. I add one to each USB I have, in the top level directory and one on the hard drive in the same place,TLD that is.

1 As stated in the earlier post, the so-called Password reset disk is actually just a file called userkey.psw
2 Using the Create a password reset disk procedure just adds this file to the root of an external drive. Other files & folders on the external drive are unaffected. The drive can continue to be used for other files.
3 If you make a new Password reset disk, it invalidates all previous ones. I don't mean you risk overwriting the previous one - I mean that Windows 7 will only accept the latest one that was made [it must store a marker in the Registry or somewhere].
4 If you attempt to make a Password user disk on an external drive that already has userkey.psw in its root then Windows 7 will warn you but will allow you you to proceed.
5 After it's been made, you can store userkey.psw anywhere you want and with whatever name you want as long as you can tell which account, which PC & which OS it applies to and as long as you have a second PC [or user account] to be able to move the file back into the root of an external drive when the thing is needed. Within those constraints, you can hide it, rename it, zip it - anything, as long as you don't tamper with its contents.
6 When you need to use it, it has to be on the root of any external drive [it does not need to be the same one that it was made on]. It must have the name userkey.psw again. It can still be hidden. It has to be the latest one made for this account on this PC for this OS.
7 I hope this is useful info for you.

JonathanV said:

I have several questions about password reset disk.
1. Will I being prompted to format the USB flash drive before creating password reset disk?
2. Can I access data on my USB flash drive after creating password reset disk?
3. Can I use password reset disk on my USB flash drive as many times as I like? Or the password reset disk will not usable (requires recreating password reset disk) after used?

Hello JonathanV.

• No, no format.
• Yes the data will be available.
• You should be able to as long as the "password" is not molested in any way.