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My 87 year old grandma's computer wouldn't boot. We set her up on a new laptop. But we couldn't remember her Gmail password. We never recovered her account, inc
by neogodless 5y ago
My 87 year old grandma's computer wouldn't boot. We set her up on a new laptop. But we couldn't remember her Gmail password. We never recovered her account, including any photos backed up to Google Photos.
- zozbot234 5y agoYou should be able to image her hard disk, and probably boot it up in a VM. Windows activation might complain in that case, but her data will be there.
- cesarb 5y ago> You should be able to image her hard disk, and probably boot it up in a VM. Is that still an option? I haven't used Windows for a long time, but I believe Microsoft has been pushing towards enabling BitLocker by default for everyone. If you don't have the BitLocker recovery key, or access to the user's Microsoft cloud account (which AFAIK has a copy of the BitLocker recovery key), the only way to decrypt the hard disk is to boot the system the normal way (with SecureBoot enabled even), since the key is held on the TPM.
- zozbot234 5y agoIf you have BitLocker enabled, you'll know about it. It's not the kind of thing that happens by accident.
- neogodless 5y agoYup there's a few things to try yet when I can get the hard drive from my family member. But I'm not optimistic about the Google account either way!