Moving persistent website login credentials to a different hard drive

[Nebulousity]

My hard drive is showing signs of failing. Several bad sectors. So far the majority of my hard drive is usable, and I have everything backed up, but it's time to get a new hard drive before this one dies completely.

I have several social media accounts as well as accounts like Amazon, etc. where I am logged in automatically and persistently. For most of those accounts, I know my ID and password, but for one of the social media accounts I can no longer remember the credentials.

I am not certain where these login credentials are stored on my computer. Is here a way that I can back them up, store them on an external disk, and then put them back on the new hard drive?

I am not an administrator (that is probably obvious) but I'm an advanced user and have been using computers since MS-DOS 4.o and I'm quite capable of following command line instructions.

Please assist. Thank you so much in advance!

~N

 

[Nigel Spike]

Social media are usually accessed via a web browser, and the passwords are stored, encrypted, in a file/folder exclusively for that specific browser.
You can't just copy that file (if you can locate it) and reuse it, that would be poor security. Imagine someone with access to your computer just copying your password file to get access to all your password protected accounts, possibly including banking. You have to reinstall the browser on another drive, and then retype all account names and passwords.

Here is a link that explains how to find out your passwords on Chrome, it also works on other Chromium based browsers. https://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/chrome-saved-passwords/
There may be website with similar info for other browsers.

Nigel

 

[Nebulousity]

Nigel - Thank you for the reply. I think we may be talking about two similar but different things. I do not allow my browser (I primarily use Chrome) to "save passwords." I just checked the steps you suggested. There are no saved passwords in my Chrome. Yet I do not need to log in each time I visit Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I've picked up somewhere that these persistent logins have something to do with Windows 10's Local Security Authentication and that administrators can replicate and relocate those. From what I gather, doing this does not expose the password, which remains encrypted, but does transfer the authentication to another computer.

At least, that is by best understanding of it. But my online searches for instruction on this have taken me into many directions that end up above my head, whereas I think actually backing up and transferring the LSA may be fairly straightforward.

So, I've gotten a taste of what is doable, I think, but haven't successfully find usuable (to me) instructions.

If I'm way off base or foundationaly misunderstanding something, please set my aright. I'm right at the edge of my understanding.

Thanks!

~N

Social media are usually accessed via a web browser, and the passwords are stored, encrypted, in a file/folder exclusively for that specific browser.
You can't just copy that file (if you can locate it) and reuse it, that would be poor security. Imagine someone with access to your computer just copying your password file to get access to all your password protected accounts, possibly including banking. You have to reinstall the browser on another drive, and then retype all account names and passwords.

Here is a link that explains how to find out your passwords on Chrome, it also works on other Chromium based browsers. https://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/chrome-saved-passwords/
There may be website with similar info for other browsers.

Nigel

 

[Nigel Spike]

Hmm. What you are talking about is totally new to me.

LSA seem to add possibility for other authorization methods like Smart Card readers and such.

It could be that if you have a MS account for login, you may via that have access to storing passwords for other apps, but that is beyond my knowledge as I use a local account. I only briefly connected to a MS account to have my Win 10 registered with MS.

I also think about Windows Hello, but that seem to mainly be face recognition, finger prints and the likes which you find on laptops.

Creating an image to move to another HDD would be a possibility, as that should include whatever password/settings you have together with you current user account.

I hope someone else comes along to give better help, and I will follow this thread with great interest.

Nigel