My Story Cracking Windows Server Password

                            
My Story Cracking Windows  #Server Password ***
Once upon a time in my country, the network admin of one of the municipalities was fired. The admin was angry so he left without giving them the password of the Domain Controller (Server 2003). The domain controller was also an SQL server which hosts all the important data of the citizens including a database of all the land owners of that area. A new network admin was hired but he failed to crack the password. They took the big old and heady Dell server to the capital and went to different places to have the password cracked but no use. They took it to a university where i was teaching CompTIA A+ to the IT students but i was not there that day. All the IT teachers failed to do the job. One of my students referred them to me. They called me and ask if I can do it. I said I am not sure but come I will try. They brought the heavy machine to my Internet cafe. I asked them how much they will pay if I succeeded in cracking the password and by the way, for those who don't know, cracking a Domain Controller password is NOT a joke. It's not an easy thing like Windows XP, 7 or 8. It is is an Active Directory domain and forest administrator password which has all kinds of security and ani-cracking applied to it. Any way, they said just do it and we'll pay whatever you want. I told them OK, go have a walk and come back in an hour or so. I had never even tried to hack a server password. I visited my friend, Google, and did some quick but very #geeky search before they come and find me googling, then i will look ugly :) . They came back when I had already finished doing my home work on Google. The new network admin sat beside me to see what I am doing so he will learn the tricks but he got lost as I was opening and editing the registry and using Command Prompt and editing some system files. To make a long story short, it took me 3 hours and a half then finally I CRACKED the "uncrackable" server password !!! When the network admin saw the desktop of the server, he was so happy and kept laughing continuously for a long time :). I told them to pay 300 Dollars, they said it's too much ! Then, they said anyway, they have to go back to their province and tell the #mayor who will pay the money. I let them go with the server without paying the money. I trusted the network admin because he is an IT graduate of the university where i was teaching and all my students know him but I had never seen him.
After they left, a friend and one of my clients who is a seasoned IT manger of one of the ministries, came and i told him the story. He said i should have asked for 1000 Dollars because what i did s a very big thing. He added that, if they had lost the data in the server because they don't have the password, the mayor would loose the elections that were a few months way.
About the 300 Dollars, they kept telling me tomorrow tomorrow for more than a month until i traveled (left the country) and never got the money.
I made a big mistake concerning the amount of the money i asked and a bigger mistake when i let them go with the server without locking it with another password, but I was extremely happy about the work i did that they failed to find someone in the capital who can do it. I was happy coz it gave me confidence that there is no IT issue that i cannot solve even if I had never faced it before as long as GOOGLE is available :) :)