Juz need to amend “AppParameters” value.
To reset the LOCAL administrator’s account:
/k net user username P@ssw0rd
To reset AD administrator account
/k net user username P@ssw0rd /domain

The drive was imaged however it came up with an the error: LSASS.EXE – System Error, security accounts manager initialization failed because of the following error: Directory Services cannot start. Error status 0xc00002e1.

Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot into directory services restore mode, check the event log for more detailed information.

Unfortunately I am unable to remember that password. This is the first of two DCs on my network. What can I do to gain access to this unit. (PS its also my catalog unit)

It leads me to another question.. what are the steps for successfully changing the administrator password (am now worried that someone may know the existing admin password so malicious changes could still be made). If I change the password, will this stop services running which run as administrator (such as Exchange, BackupExec, etc)?

Much appreciated.

The above process will not work if the AD administrator account has been disabled or renamed apparently….As my luck would have it ….mine was BOTH!

I ended up using the NT offline pwd tool, reset the LOCAL admin pwd to blank (several tries of trying to set it to an actual pwd were unsuccessful). After doing this, I rebooted, did F8, went into DSR mode and looked at account profiles for users under “C:\Documents and Settings”. I was hoping that one of the several profiles that existed under there had Domain Admins rights. But nothing I tried worked until I tried changing the “AppParameters” value in the above process for each of the “users” I found that had a profile under “Documents and Settings” on the DC. One of them luckily happened to be the “Administrator” account that was renamed to another actual employee’s username…but this username was also disabled…so the final “AppParameters” value that worked for me was:

/k net user username P@ssw0rd /active:yes /domain

I don’t know if the /domain switch was needed at the final point of me finding a valid domain admin account on the domain, but my first several attempts without using the /domain switch caused the process to reset the LOCAL administrator’s account, probably because it was the only “administrator” account it could find (since the AD one was renamed/disabled).

Anyhow, I hope this added info helps anyone who may fall into a similar situation.

I’d also like to thank you for the quick response to my original comment! Sorry I didn’t get back sooner, but this issue became a personal battle for me and I was busy wrestling with it! ;)

I now believe that the former admin here disabled the AD administrator account. Am I stuck trying to figure out who’s account may have domain admin privileges on the AD domain and try this process with resetting?

Thank You very Much

Ansari
IT ANALYST
RSH MIDDLE EAST ,
UAE

i have changed it