Can't access administrator account

First, I am trying to help a friend who has Windows XP Home on an HP dekstop about 3 years old.

When booting she was having to press CTRL+ALT+Delete to get to her login screen. She decided she could change that and started messing around with her user accounts. Now she has access to only her limited user account and when she tries to login to her admin account it tells her that "this machine can not log you on. Check your user name and domain and try entering your password again." When she goes to user accounts it doesn't even give an option to set up a new admin account or change that password or anything.

As best as I can understand her this is what she did.

1. She created a new user account and made it administrator and made her previous administrator account a standard user account
2. Then she went in and changed things back the way they were, making her original account the administrator account, but she removed the password.
3. Her grandson had activated the Net.Passport with his information. She went into that and changed it to her information.

Now she can log on to that standard user account but can not get into her administrator account.

If anyone can offer any help I'd appreciate it.

 

Try this:
Log on in Safe Mode (keep tapping the F8 key when booting until Safe Mode screen opens up).
Accept Safe Mode and continue boot.
If it asks for a username and password, enter "administrator" (without quotes) as the username, and leave the password space blank.
If that works, go to User Accounts and set up an Admin Account.

 

Thank you for responding. I tried to lead her through this simple procedure over the phone and she said it didn't work, that when she went into her user accounts in safe mode there was no option to set up a new administrator account or anything. I am going to go over this evening and try it myself. Will let you know if it worked.

 

ya there is no way she could possibly take away Admin rights from the built in administrator account Windows will not let you. My thought is she forgot the pass and needs to wrack her brain trying out different ones

 

I was pretty sure I had heard about this being done. Reading on the net, other people seem to have had some success with it. Maybe it depends on how you got into the situation in the first place.

Another thing to try is to Restore to a time before things got messed up. Usually you need Admin rights to do this, but funny things happen with computers sometimes. You never know your luck.

Also, when you're in Safe Mode, try going to Start>Run and type in "control userpassword2" (no quotes) and see if you can do anything in there. I don't know much about this one, but some people suggest using it.

Finally, if all else fails, have a look around on the web for other options. There are ways, but they can't be talked about here.

 

:cry After 4-1/2 hours solid, I finally managed to get her administrator account back and I wouldn't even try to go into how that happened, because actually, I don't think I even could. When nothing sensible worked I just started doing crazy things, anything I could think of, and finally her normal desktop came up. It took me quite by surprise, and it would take a book to tell about those 4-1/2 hours.

Just wanted to thank you for your responses and let you know that all did end well.

Til' next time ... :wave

 

WOOHOO!!! :celebrate Well done!!! :tas
As Rocky said to Mugsy (Bugs bunny cartoon), "I don't know how yas done it but i know yas done it!"
Wish I knew what you did... :-D