XP Pro, admin profile "disappeared"

Second hand info I'm afraid, a friend bought herself a new laptop not too long ago and didn't create a profile before installing various odds and ends and storing important documents and email, which she has password protected to prevent her 3 teenage kids from gaining access too.

Then she decided to create profiles for each of them and of course the first created became the default and the original "Adminstrator" file has now become hidden. She's created a new profile for herself "admin" so that she can control the kids access (no idea why she didn't use something a bit more original ) but of course no access to her files still.

Apparently following something she googled she has located the files but as they're password protected still can't access them.

My own searching has found someone saying that booting up in safe mode would show all admin accounts and that she would then be able to log in and access her files and copy them to a new profile. You get rather a lot of hits googling and searching the microsoft site, most returns having absolutely nothing to do with the problem and as I don't have access to the laptop at the moment I can't try various solutions and she won't. I tried to get her to boot into safe mode earlier by trying F8, so she saw something on screen saying F11 for recovery so hit F11 instead even though I said no, it didn't help so she gave up.

Is there a really basic step by step guide I could send her that will regain access to those files? If there's something a bit more involved then I should be able to sort it out myself in the near future assuming the travel agency resends the e-ticket for her flight before it's due (3 days!).

Any help in the next 48 hours would be greatly appreciated.

 

apologies to anyone reading this, I did try a search before posting but didn't find the info I was after but when I posted it then gave me the perfect thread which has now been sent to her.

 

If you need more help, let us know! Good Luck!

 

I found this http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106950 thread after posting (it came up as a link), sent her an IM, called her and sent the link, she chose "without network support" so couldn't email herself the files she wanted but actually came up with the idea of using a memory stick all by herself!

Files are now safe and the originals deleted just in case someone stumbles across them and can crack her password and the Administrator profile is left hidden, she's happy. Thanks for the offer of more help but it doesn't appear to be necessary now, no doubt I will be back with the next problem though