Forgot password. Tried too many times &Locked account. Now user gone!

VeroKL · 22 Mar 2015

I have a Dell laptop that I haven't rebooted in months so when it shut itself off ( b/c battery died) I not longer remembered the password for Windows (Win7). I tried too many passwords and apparently shut off the account b/c when I obtained the password (my hubby remembered it) it not longer worked.

I looked up for ways to reset the password. I managed to boot the laptop from a Macrium recovery disk & open a command prompt. First, on the menu that allows you to change boot order, I also set a password for the admin (it had not been set before).

So now I'm logged in as admin from the CD and opened a command window. Now resetting the user password for the account called "owner" should be cake. However, is not b/c the username account seems to be missing: when I type "net users" I only get two accounts: guest and admin. No trace of the user account called "owner" which is the only one I ever used!
"I also get an error "The command completed with one or more errors"

I read that that may be b/c the account got somehow corrupted. Does anyone know how to tell if the user account is corrupted? Any guidance for how to recover the account & it's password?

Layback Bear · 22 Mar 2015

Here is a whole page of things concerning user accounts.
I really don't know which one you need.
Take a look see.

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutsearch...user%20account

paul1149 · 22 Mar 2015

Unless that's a recovery environment, chances are you're reading the accounts of the PE environment itself, not the installation on your main drive. Burn a Repair disk from a working unit and try it from there.

VeroKL · 22 Mar 2015

Thank you so much for the link and advice.
I'm using the CD with the recovery environment that I created w/Macrium. In the top blue bar of the main window actually says "windows free pe".

I actually changed directory to c:\ and still see only two users (admin & guest). "Owner" account is nowhere to be found. If I moved to the C:\ directory; I assume I'm getting the user list from C:\ when I type the net users command. Is this correct?

Another troublesome fact: I followed Dinesh's excellent tutorial on this topic:
User Account Password - Change from WinRE
and I'm stuck on step 9 because when I rebooted I don't get a choice to log in as admin. The only user account that shows up is "owner" account which is still un-accessible. I assume that the problem w/"owner" account is that is locked. How can I tell if it is locked or corrupted or other?

paul1149 · 22 Mar 2015

I don't know how Macrium works. A true WinRE will first ask you what install location you want to make the target of your attention. Lacking that, the Net User command is by default going to work on the instance of Windows that is actually running. I don't know off hand how to make it target a remote install.

The fact that Owner shows up in "step 9" suggests that this is correct, and that the account still exists.

Worst case, you can rescue the data from the account and create a new account. If you can log into Administrator.

Edit: Original paragraph redacted, per forum rules. I believe there is a tutorial here which tells of a way to change PWs via a utility on a boot disk.

AddRAM · 22 Mar 2015

We can not really help you with passwords, it`s against forum rules. :)

It also sounds like you put an admin password in the bios, DO NOT DO THAT.

What do you want to do, just cause more problems ? (rhetorical)

You haven`t used the computer in months, just re install windows using the Dell recovery options and NEVER EVER use a password on a pc again, they are absolutely useless.

VeroKL · 23 Mar 2015

=Ups! Sorry about breaking the rules!!

I actually managed to change the password by booting in safe mode. For some reason only in safe mode it listed the "owner" account. The rest was trivial following this site's great tutorials.

BTW: I know I was booting from the CD b/c I change the order for re-boot on the BIOS and put CD first. Dell still asked me: press any key to boot from a cd. If I pressed anything, the cd-drive went into hyper-sonic mode & made jumbo jet noises. Also, it took for ever to bring Windows up. If I didn't press any key, the regular boot sequence came up. Also, I tried using a Storecraft PE CD and that one didn't ask me: it went straight to the cd to boot, which was a problem when I wanted to get it out (my dvd tray won't open w/o power. To force the system to boot from the HD I removed the whole tray, booted & then inserted the tray & ejected the disk.

Now I have to figure out why I still don't see the admin account on the log in screen, but that is a problem for another day.

IMPORTANT: Sorry for the clueless question but here it goes: why it is not a good idea to add a password for the admin account in the bios? What could happen? Most importantly: how do I undo it?