[xntryk1]

My uncle recently passed away and left his Dell Inspiron 20 computer behind. It has Windows 8.1. installed and we have no clue what the administrator password might be. We're not interested in saving any data on the computer. We just want to reset it to a clean Windows 8.1 install (with administrator rights). Is there any way to do this for free? Also, we don't have the Windows install media and ophcrack doesn't find any passwords. Thanks.

Edited by xntryk1, 07 June 2016 - 07:01 PM.

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Since it's Windows 8.1 the install key is embedded in the BIOS. You can do a Clean Install of Windows 8.1 by following this tutorial:

 

See this tutorial by Shawn Brink: How to Do a Clean Install of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1

[Ztruker]

Since it's Windows 8.1 the install key is embedded in the BIOS. You can do a Clean Install of Windows 8.1 by following this tutorial:

 

See this tutorial by Shawn Brink: How to Do a Clean Install of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1

[xntryk1]

Thanks for the response, but I got stopped at the very first step in that tutorial:

 

"1. Boot the computer from your Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 installation DVD or USB flash drive."

 

As I mentioned I don't have the windows installation media. Is there someplace I can download it? 

[xntryk1]

Best Answer

I found where I could download it (via the Microsoft media creation tool). And after a little trial and error, I managed to do a clean install of the correct Windows 8.1 version (using the OEM product key from UEFI firmware). So now, I'm updating it to Windows 10. All is good. 

[Ztruker]

Good job, glad you got it working.

[xntryk1]

Yep, clean install erased everything. But in my case, it wasn't a problem. The computer had been lightly used before the password was lost (about a year before my uncle passed away). So there wasn't much data worth saving (if any). Obviously, this might not be the best solution if there IS valuable data...