If a hash has already been cracked, what does John the Ripper do when you run it again?

• A. It will load only hashes that were not cracked.
• B. It will not load any hashes that are already cracked.
• C. It will purge all hashes and start fresh.
• D. It will ask for user confirmation before loading cracked hashes.

Answer: (B)

John the Ripper uses a cache of cracked results stored in the pot file. On a subsequent run, it checks this cache and marks any hash whose plaintext password is already recorded as cracked. The cracking engine then skips those hashes and focuses only on the ones that remain unsolved. This saves time by not re-cracking hashes you've already solved. It doesn’t purge or prompt for confirmation by default, and it isn’t about loading only uncracked hashes in a separate sense—the key behavior is that already-cracked hashes are ignored during the cracking process.