Windows Password Protected At Boot Up

Apologies if posted in the wrong forum, but my reasoning for here is due to it being a software (OS) issue.

My wife's aunt (in her 80s) received one of those helpful phone calls from "microsoft" last week and was fooled into allowing remote access to her PC. Fortunately for her even though she logged into her bank account at the callers request she isn't able to make online payments and due to the diligence of a post office worker she was prevented from wiring them the £2k she had to repay - funds were transferred from one of her accounts to another to make her believe that this sum had been deposited in her account. It was only after her daughter posted on FB that my wife and myself became aware of this attempt to con her.

My wife is in management in the same bank as her aunt so steps were put in place to make sure her account was secure, I've brought the PC home with me to sort it out one way or another. I obtained the PC for my wife's aunt and maintain the wider family's PCs.

I'll give the specs if important, but not sure if anything beyond it's running Win10 (recent online upgrade from Win7) is important.

When booting up it hangs for a while then a pop-up window requests a password (tried the 1-2-3 that I found in an online search, no joy) which of course is likely to be pretty simple but how many attempts to you try at 3/4 numbers before giving up and looking for a better solution?

I have a docking station for hard drives that has been very useful in the past at initial cleans with norton and maleware bytes on infected drives, would I still run into the password protection trying this route? I've read in my searches that replacing certain files (which don't spring to mind) could remove the password protection, obviously no use if I can't access any of the files.

My other option is to reinstall Win7 and assume that the Win10 download would turn up again before too long, is this likely or would the real Microsoft have to be contacted?

Thanks for any knowledge/ advice in advance.

 

I suggest you go over to the other forum, the Malware Removal Forum, and in the forum index click on the Read & Run Me First Malware Removal guide. Do all the steps you can in that guide - carefully and slowly - and then post a new thread in that forum with the scan reports needed. A trained malware expert will then advise you further:
READ & RUN ME FIRST Malware Removal Guide
Malware Removal Forum

 

Got to be able to boot the PC to windows to run any scans, I have no issues with removing malware, it's getting into windows in the first place I'm after advice/ knowledge on. Thanks anyway.

 

Have you tried recovery/repair options prior to that?

 

Have a look over here.
http://www.howtogeek.com/222262/how-to-reset-your-forgotten-password-in-windows-10/

 

Yes, the nice people that connected remotely have done done something to the restore points so that they are useless. All part of the scam so that they can ask for more cash and more and more ....

 

As with many googled searches the issue is not the windows log on 9not yet anyway) the password requested is a pop-up window before even that part of windows will load.

 

Take a picture and upload it.

 

The aunt's computer is on the floor, not connected to anything, but have just found this article http://triplescomputers.com/blog/ca...pport-telephone-scam-computer-ransom-lockout/ which contains a picture of the Start Up password pop-up. Will try the steps after system restore tomorrow. Same Q though for anyone that might know, is pulling the HD to my dock likely to give me access to move/ change the registry hives and run scans?