Create a Password Reset Disk in Windows 10

Windows 10 employs strict measures to ensure that nobody but only the authorized users can access the user profile folders. So in case you forget your user password in Windows 10, it will become almost impossible to gain access to your personal files and folders. The problem is escalated further by the fact that Windows hibernates by default when you shut it off so that the startup time is considerably small the next time you start power on your PC – which makes it impossible to access the Windows hard disks even when trying to access them from Linux. Taking into all these facts into account, we should definitely make sure that we do not forget the user password and create a password reset disk in case we forget it.

Here is how you can create a password reset disk in Windows 10:

  1. Right-click on the Start or press Win+X hotkey and select Control Panel from the menu that shows up.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  2. In the Control Panel, type password reset in the search box and then select Create a password reset disk.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  3. This will start the Forgotten Password Wizard. Insert a USB flash key into your PC’s USB port and click Next to continue. The USB key is needed only for a tiny 2KB file, so you can use a USB key of any capacity.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  4. Select the disk drive from the listbox and click Next to continue.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  5. Enter your current user password and click Next to proceed. Note that if you change your password in the future, then this reset disk will no longer work.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  6. A file named userkey.psw will be created on the target disk. Now you can click on the Finish button and close the Forgotten Password wizard.Create Password Reset Disk in Windows 10
  7. You can use this USB flash key for resetting the user password any time later from the Windows logon screen.

No matter how many times you change the password using this password reset disk, this disk will keep working and you won’t have to update it.