Question why Admin acct disappeared-Reinstall failed. Help appreciated.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Donaldson
  • Start date Start date
J

Joe Donaldson

I was trying to help soneone on Win XP home. Perhaps I am an idiot and
my parents were correct. Not sure.

PC was used by a few people and he wanted all accounts to be deleted
and a new Admin account added.

Well I notice and I guess by design, when you delete an account or
change its name-that the profile name listed in Windows Explorer still
exists. I guess that makes sense so no data is lost.

However we renamed a profile and then went into My Computer and
changed it to so it said Anne/Anne instead of Pam/Jeff.

I for some reason did something wrong (id10T) and had no admin account
anymore. It changed the rights of the person to Guest and thats how I
could boot into the system.

Then when I tried to change the rights I could not since I was not an
Admin. I tried to log in as Administrator and it said password was
incorrect (tried blank-did not work).

What to do?

Tried a repair with XP Home disk and it asked for Windows key and then
it said System could not be activated. Strange sequence of events.

Besides breathing-what did I do wrong? I feel bad for helping out this
person and these things occurring.

Thanks Joe
 
Hi Joe,

You still have an admin account, you're just locked out of it. You need it
back to fix this, try restarting in Safe mode (do you know the default admin
account password?) and logging on there. Password help:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_passwords.htm

As to the accounts, yes if you indicate not to delete data, the folders will
remain. Once you recover the data you want, you can delete the user folders
after the account has been removed (you can't delete the folder while the
user account still exists).

As to reinstalling/reactivating, is this a regular retail version, or a
preinstalled one?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Thanks will try it
Joe

Rick \"Nutcase\" Rogers said:
Hi Joe,

You still have an admin account, you're just locked out of it. You need it
back to fix this, try restarting in Safe mode (do you know the default admin
account password?) and logging on there. Password help:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_passwords.htm

As to the accounts, yes if you indicate not to delete data, the folders will
remain. Once you recover the data you want, you can delete the user folders
after the account has been removed (you can't delete the folder while the
user account still exists).

As to reinstalling/reactivating, is this a regular retail version, or a
preinstalled one?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
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