# FreeBSD on HP 2 in 1 laptop



## balanga (Nov 7, 2019)

I have an HP 2 in 1 laptop which has Windows 10 installed but the password given does not seem to be correct. After doing some reading I thought I may be able to boot up FreeBSD from a USB stick and run `chntpw` and change the password, unfortunately I can't get FreeBSD (even 12.1) to boot. I also tried NomadBSD and that wouldn't work either. Has anyone had any success with FreeBSD on one of these systems?

I did manage to boot Lubuntu and got access to the Windows disk. but the filesystem was described as read only.

I have a feeing that I may be able to get FreeBSD to boot by changing  a UART setting as in Thread 57321

Any comments?


----------



## usdmatt (Nov 7, 2019)

The first thing I would try is one of the utilities that actually create a bootable ISO. They usually boot straight into a simple interface that searches for Windows password databases, list the users and lets you clear or reset passwords.


----------



## balanga (Nov 7, 2019)

The problem is knowing which to choose. There see to be so many. I booted up Lubuntu and that was able to access the Windows partition but it had read-only access, and I don't know how to change that. I'm more comfortable with FreeBSD, but it looks like it will take a good while to figure out what needs to be done to make it boot. By all accounts I should be able to do this from FreeBSD by running chntpw in the Windows/System32/config directory, but can't get FreeBSD to boot so far.


----------



## userxbw (Nov 9, 2019)

I don't recommend this unless you have a good idea of what its doing or what you're doing (that being my disclaimer), you could try booting that live linux, gparted create a gpt ntfs usb stick, while waiting for a windows 10 install iso to download, then create a uefi boot/install and use that to either fix it, or reinstall windows 10.

mount iso and copy its content onto the usb stick.

windows 10 keeps the keys on there server , i am not sure about new factory installs but i've not entered a product key in many install of windows 10


----------

