Mystery User on Startup

I bought a display laptop. Any passwords were deleted off it and the display user account was deleted. When I first started it up when i got it home everything was fine. When I put a password on the admin account and restarted it to make sure the change took when it came to the screen with users on it my username was not there. Instead it just said KIOSK i typef in my password it said no correct. I typed in the password that was on the computer when it was on display. not correct. I hit switch user and it asks you to type in a user name in password so i typed in my user name and password not correct. I typed in the user name and password when it was on display not correct i then typed in the user name when it was on display and my password and it worked. So i then went into the user accounts. It says that my user name is the admin and KIOSK does not show up when i go to manage account to delete it. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Whats the make/model of your machine?

It is an HP pavilion dv 7-3079wm

restart your computer,
Use the built in HP recovery partition (f10 repeatedly at POST) if it has one
restore it to factory settings

If that doesn't work, go back to the store you bought it from and demand the recovery dvds

Its F11 on these models! :) F10 is for the BIOS. Would be worth recovering as was ex display.

If you can get in successfully, try to burn a recovery disk using windows recovery.
Here is a link on how to do that: http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/05/20/windows-7-how-to-create-a-system-repair-rescue-recovery-disc/

Then I would format the drive and reinstall. Start fresh.

Good luck!

you could try using ophcrack.. the free version can recover simple passwords. The $99 version will recover all but the most complex passwords

If I were you, I would start fresh, reason being is that it being a display model, who knows if this is the only problem. Once you do get into windows just fine, another problem might pop-up unexpectedly. So thats why I would do a clean install.

Follow the advice to set your system back to the factory state.

Let us know the results.

Is there a COA sticker on your computer?

The sticker may be on the bottom of the laptop.

Please use Speccy to gather info on about your laptop and use that info to update your system specs.

SPECCY- System Information Tool
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

FREE. Operating System, CPU and Temp, Ram, Motherboard, Graphics, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals, Network info.
Simply put—this is the best and it’s free!