Many people using Disk Doctor need to extract information from a computer with a lost password. While some basic utilities for doing this manually have existed since the creation of Disk Doctor, it only became easy in Disk Doctor 2.1.

Before lockpicking, make sure that you have Disk Doctor 2.1 or later and that your computer can boot from Disk Doctor. The computer must use Windows and not use BitLocker.

To begin, boot into Disk Doctor. Wait for the boot sequence to finish, and then view the command menu. Select 3, and find the drive letter for your main hard drive (if it doesn't show up, then Disk Doctor doesn't see it and you can't continue this guide). Remember this letter: it will be important in a moment.

Close Explorer++ and then select 6. Type in your drive letter, followed by a colon (no spaces), such that the letter C would become C:. Press ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard.

Then, restart your computer. At the screen where you type in your password (the login screen), press SHIFT repeatedly until a command prompt window opens up. Type notepad.

Notepad will open; go to File>Open. This will act as a rudimentary File Explorer window. From here, copy your files to another storage medium.

Close Notepad and the Command Prompt, and then boot into Disk Doctor again. From here, select 7 and type in C:, where C is your drive letter (see above). The lockpicking is complete and everything is back to normal.

An aside: the legal and ethical implications of lockpicking software

By some definitions, the lockpicking capabilities of Disk Doctor make it a tool for criminals above all. I believe that this is incorrect - Disk Doctor is a tool that may be used for a variety of intents, just like a crowbar or a pair of scissors.

You are solely responsible for following all applicable regulations, just as if you were using any other tool.