A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
...
On 2025-03-22 14:37, Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice:Â her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
The laptop can perhaps be booted from external media (Linux, perhaps),
and then the disk can be read and photos copied elsewhere.
Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
--
--
Phil, London
On 22/03/2025 14:23, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-03-22 14:37, Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year >>> (I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from >>> his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so >>> I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
The laptop can perhaps be booted from external media (Linux, perhaps),
and then the disk can be read and photos copied elsewhere.
A laptop that is locked can't even be booted with an external USB drive because the bios must be locked as well. The woman won't be able to
crack the bios password.
The only thing I can think of is to remove the hard disk from the laptop
and try to access it by docking it to an external enclosure and also it
is a good idea to image the drive while it is out of the laptop so that
it can be used for future use to see what else is on the laptop. The
image will need to be restored and perhaps needs to be password cracked to make sure no documents are encrypted because of the password.
Whether the woman has the expertise of cracking the password is
something else. However, the image of the disk is there for her to seek further assistance. I specialise in cracking passwords and unlock locked laptops, desktops and mobile phones but I charge for the service.
Philip Herlihy <nothing@invalid.com> wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
If the employer enforced bitlocker on the laptop then you have no chance doing it yourself. Only option would be to ask the council whether they
have a master key for the bitlocker encryption. Although, that might raise awkward questions as to 1) why the person still had the laptop, and 2) why did they use it for personal activities?
This is a reminder for all readers to ensure they have set legacy contacts for all important accounts so that loved ones will get access to your stuff when you die or become incapacitated.
The laptop can perhaps be booted from external media (Linux, perhaps),
and then the disk can be read and photos copied elsewhere.
If the employer enforced bitlocker on the laptop then you have no chance doing it yourself.
On Sat, 3/22/2025 11:34 AM, Chris wrote:[...]
This is a reminder for all readers to ensure they have set legacy contacts for all important accounts so that loved ones will get access to your stuff when you die or become incapacitated.
If your significant-other is using all of their brain cells
for activities of this nature (locking things up, not
announcing in advance where the PostIt note is stored),
then good luck cracking/hacking all of it.
While most of the time, your health descends slowly and
you have time to pass along a few hints, you can also
die suddenly.
On Sat, 3/22/2025 12:45 PM, Passwords wrote:
On 22/03/2025 14:23, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-03-22 14:37, Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice:Â her husband died last year >>>> (I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from >>>> his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so >>>> I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile >>>> is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
The laptop can perhaps be booted from external media (Linux, perhaps),
and then the disk can be read and photos copied elsewhere.
A laptop that is locked can't even be booted with an external USB drive
because the bios must be locked as well. The woman won't be able to
crack the bios password.
The only thing I can think of is to remove the hard disk from the laptop
and try to access it by docking it to an external enclosure and also it
is a good idea to image the drive while it is out of the laptop so that
it can be used for future use to see what else is on the laptop. The
image will need to be restored and perhaps needs to be password cracked to >> make sure no documents are encrypted because of the password.
Whether the woman has the expertise of cracking the password is
something else. However, the image of the disk is there for her to seek
further assistance. I specialise in cracking passwords and unlock locked
laptops, desktops and mobile phones but I charge for the service.
A "business laptop" stores the BIOS settings in a 2KB EEPROM. The official >path for recovery, is to send the laptop back to the factory, and they can >put the default pattern back in the 2KB EEPROM.
They do it that way, so removal of the CMOS battery CR2032 will
have no effect at all on the password for the BIOS.
On consumer laptops the BIOS password is stored in PCH NVRAM and
removal of CR2032 is sufficient to reset it.
The design could also use full Disk Encryption (FDE) supported in
the drive controller. Or BitLocker in the OS.
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
On Sat, 22 Mar 2025 15:23:01 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
The laptop can perhaps be booted from external media (Linux, perhaps),
and then the disk can be read and photos copied elsewhere.
I was going to suggest this. However, I tried to do this recently and it didn't work a 100%. The PC has an SSD with Windows and a SATA HDD with
data. I could mount Data and copy items, but I got an error (something
with 'hibernate') on Windows.
In the end I took out the hard drive and put it in a USB hard drive
docking station.
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
On 3/22/2025 9:37 AM, Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
There's a bootable Linux cracker called Trinity that looks promising.
I haven't tried it. If there's a BIOS password you should be able to
clear it by taking out the battery for a few minutes. In most
motherboards there's also a connection you can short out. I don't
know whether laptops have them. You do risk messing up settings,
but you should be able to figure that out once you have access
to the BIOS.
XP used to be easy to get the password. I haven't had occasion
to try anything on Win10 but I just happen to have been exploring
today because someone else wanted to crack the password.
A "business laptop" stores the BIOS settings in a 2KB EEPROM. The official >path for recovery, is to send the laptop back to the factory, and they can >put the default pattern back in the 2KB EEPROM.
They do it that way, so removal of the CMOS battery CR2032 will
have no effect at all on the password for the BIOS.
On consumer laptops the BIOS password is stored in PCH NVRAM and
removal of CR2032 is sufficient to reset it.
If your significant-other is using all of their brain cells
for activities of this nature (locking things up, not
announcing in advance where the PostIt note is stored),
then good luck cracking/hacking all of it.
While most of the time, your health descends slowly and
you have time to pass along a few hints, you can also
die suddenly. My grandmother for example, a vessel blew
in her brain at age 80 (nothing really abnormal about
that, she probably did not know she even had a blood
pressure). But the problem was, my sister was with her,
and tried to do CPR on her (with of course, zero results
on a brain bleed). It was a relief for my sister, to find
out on the autopsy, that saving her would have been
impossible, even if she was laying on a surgical table
and a surgery team was ready to go. Sometimes,
that's how quick your end is -- "a hose blows" and you're
gone, just like that.
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 22 Mar 2025 13:34:53 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
A "business laptop" stores the BIOS settings in a 2KB EEPROM. The official >> path for recovery, is to send the laptop back to the factory, and they can >> put the default pattern back in the 2KB EEPROM.
They do it that way, so removal of the CMOS battery CR2032 will
have no effect at all on the password for the BIOS.
On consumer laptops the BIOS password is stored in PCH NVRAM and
removal of CR2032 is sufficient to reset it.
This would mean I messed my heirs up, or at least made their lives more difficult, by buying a 'business laptop' which I think they told me I
bought this last time.
Fortunately, I don't use any passwords. (except I put the passwords for banks, credit cards, Paypal, and Amazon (which has credit card info
stored in it) in an encrypted LibreOffice file).
Philip Herlihy wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
--
--
Phil, London
This is a tough situation, and I'm really sorry to hear about your friend's loss.of her relationship to her late husband and possibly a death certificate. Once they grant permission, they might even help with unlocking the devices, which would make things a lot easier.
First, the most important thing is to get permission from the London Borough Council. Since both the laptop and phone belong to the employer, your friend will need to contact their IT department or HR to explain the situation. They'll likely need proof
If the council gives the green light, here's how you can proceed:credentials, she can try recovering the account using Google's account recovery process. This usually involves answering security questions or using a recovery email or phone number.
For the Samsung phone, start by checking if the photos were backed up to Google Photos. If your friend knows her late husband's Google account credentials, she can log in to Google Photos and see if the pictures are there. If she doesn't know the
If the phone itself is locked and she doesn't know the PIN, pattern, or password, Samsung's Find My Mobile service might help. She'll need to log in with the Samsung account linked to the phone (if she knows it) and use the "Unlock" feature to bypassthe lock screen. If she doesn't have the Samsung account details, she might need to contact Samsung Support with proof of ownership and the death certificate to see if they can help.
If she can get the phone unlocked, connecting it to a computer via USB and enabling file transfer mode (MTP) should let her access the photos directly from the device's storage.using a Windows installation USB or recovery disk. This involves booting the laptop from the USB,
For the laptop, if it's password-protected and she doesn't know the password, there are a few ways to get in. The most straightforward method is to ask the council's IT department for help. If that's not an option, you can try resetting the password
opening the Command Prompt, and either enabling the hidden Administrator account or resetting the password for the existing account. There are plenty of detailed guides online for this process.phone to the laptop. You can also search for files with extensions like .jpg, .png, or .heic using the Windows search bar.
Once you're in, search for photo backups in common locations like the Pictures folder, OneDrive, or any external drives. Look for backup software like Samsung Smart Switch or Google Backup and Sync, which might have been used to transfer photos from the
If the laptop has cloud backup services like OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox installed, log in to these accounts (if you have the credentials) to check for synced photos.not be 100% reliable. Be cautious with these, as they can sometimes void warranties or cause data loss.
Now, if the official routes don't work and you're willing to explore less official methods, here are a couple of options:
For the phone, if it's locked and you can't get in through Samsung's tools, there are third-party software tools that claim to bypass Android lock screens. Tools like Dr.Fone or Tenorshare 4uKey can sometimes work, but they often require payment and may
For the laptop, if you can't reset the password through official means, you could try using a Linux live USB to access the files. Booting the laptop from a Linux USB (like Ubuntu) lets you access the hard drive without needing the Windows password. Fromthere, you can copy the files to an external drive. This method doesn't involve breaking any passwords, so it's a bit less risky, but it still skirts around the usual security measures.
If all else fails, professional data recovery services are an option. They can often extract data from locked or corrupted devices, though this can be expensive.
This is a response to the post seen at: >http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=686050208#686050208
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 22 Mar 2025 13:45:27 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
If your significant-other is using all of their brain cells
for activities of this nature (locking things up, not
announcing in advance where the PostIt note is stored),
then good luck cracking/hacking all of it.
While most of the time, your health descends slowly and
you have time to pass along a few hints, you can also
die suddenly. My grandmother for example, a vessel blew
in her brain at age 80 (nothing really abnormal about
that, she probably did not know she even had a blood
pressure). But the problem was, my sister was with her,
and tried to do CPR on her (with of course, zero results
on a brain bleed). It was a relief for my sister, to find
out on the autopsy, that saving her would have been
impossible, even if she was laying on a surgical table
and a surgery team was ready to go. Sometimes,
that's how quick your end is -- "a hose blows" and you're
gone, just like that.
Your sister deserves a lot of credit for doing something when your
mother was in distress, even if it didn't/couldn't work.
When my win10 wouldn't start, not because of a bad password but because
some update messed thigns up, I used Hirens BootCD and got all the files
I wanted with little trouble and no bad effects. It was free.
On Sun, 3/23/2025 10:06 PM, micky wrote:
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 22 Mar 2025 13:45:27 -0400, Paul
<nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
If your significant-other is using all of their brain cells
for activities of this nature (locking things up, not
announcing in advance where the PostIt note is stored),
then good luck cracking/hacking all of it.
While most of the time, your health descends slowly and
you have time to pass along a few hints, you can also
die suddenly. My grandmother for example, a vessel blew
in her brain at age 80 (nothing really abnormal about
that, she probably did not know she even had a blood
pressure). But the problem was, my sister was with her,
and tried to do CPR on her (with of course, zero results
on a brain bleed). It was a relief for my sister, to find
out on the autopsy, that saving her would have been
impossible, even if she was laying on a surgical table
and a surgery team was ready to go. Sometimes,
that's how quick your end is -- "a hose blows" and you're
gone, just like that.
Your sister deserves a lot of credit for doing something when your
mother was in distress, even if it didn't/couldn't work.
My sister is a CPR Instructor.
We used to have Resusci Anne and Resusci Baby on the livingroom couch.
These models have changed over the years, and were more crude looking
decades ago. You got a torso, for the larger one, while today they
model more of the body (which would have taken up the entire couch
and wouldn't have worked as well while we were watching TV). I gather
the modern one has electronics, to grade you on the quality of your
technique (chest compressions).
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/resusci-anne
I think that's one of those skills, where to be an Instructor, you
have to re-qualify every couple years, so my sister is not
an instructor any more. But she can still kick your ass,
well, because you looked a little pale. It pays to always
look healthy, in her presence.
One of the reasons she trained for that, is she used to be a
Life Guard. And her gig was at an ocean beach. That means you
could be dragging someone out of the ocean, with a medical problem,
and it's a handy skill to have if you suspect a heart attack
is why they went under. The ambulance there, is 30-40 minutes away.
In the modern era, I think the Canteen has an AED (shock paddles).
The part that sucks in a job like that, is arriving early in the
morning, and you have to swim out and set the marker buoys. The
ocean is like ice water in the morning. And that beach also has
a significant rip out there. You can get some idea where the rip
runs, just by standing on the cliff above and looking down at the
water surface.
The beach has a tower and three chairs, and the Life Guards have radios.
That is so, if someone is in the Tower (like on a holiday day),
they can dispatch a guard from one of the chairs. On week days,
the Tall Chair and a pair of binoculars, is the control point.
There are always multiple guards working there (when they are on duty).
Paul
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from
his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I
haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any
passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their
wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
On Sat, 22 Mar 2025 13:37:50 -0000, Philip Herlihy
<nothing@invalid.com> wrote:
A friend of a friend asked me for advice: her husband died last year
(I'm satisfied this is genuine) and she's anxious to recover photos from >>his mobile, which she thinks may have been backed-up to his laptop.
Both belong to her late husband's employer (a London Borough Council) so
I figure they'll be locked down pretty tightly. The laptop (which I >>haven't seen yet) is apparently some flavour of Windows, and the mobile
is a Samsung, which means Android. She doesn't appear to have any >>passwords. Apparently the only copies of some photos taken at their >>wedding are on that mobile.
Any ideas?
Any reason why she can't ask the owner of the devices for help? She
can't be in a unique situation.
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