XP Pro, Cant logon as administrator

A friend was given her school laptop from a job she left, IBM Think Pad running XP Pro. The computer is set to log on to their Domain only. They have since cut off her access to their domain and she is unable to log on at all.

I have cracked \ changed the Administrator password to “blank”, however I am unable to log on as the administrator. I can log on as another user “HelpAssistant” but cannot access administrator functions (HelpAssistant has administrator privileges).

Please help, don’t want to redo the drive, We \ She does not have the disks (XP Pro, Office and a few others).

Thanks in advance

Crapgame

 

I don't know anything about domains so I don't think I can be much help. Hopefully someone else will answer.

I am just wondering about the exact message you get when you try to login as Administrator?

 

To start, I log on as HelpAssistant with the blank password. When I go into Control Panel and click User Accounts and attempt to log on using Administrator with the blank password a Box comes up “User Accounts” and the dialog states “User Options could not be started with the supplied user information. Ensure that the supplied user information identifies an Administrator on this computer.”

Thanks for your help

Crapgame

 

If you hit F8 during the Lenovo screen to get to safe mode options will it start in safe mode and does the Administrator account show up on the Welcome screen? That is how I would try to log into the Administrator account which is usually hidden but will show up when using Safe Mode.

 

Can you not ask the jobs it people to hook it up to the domain and remove it from the domain for you? Im sure they wouldn't mind if they did indeed give her the laptop to use.

 

I tried both Safe Mode & Safe Mode With Networking, same result.

I know for a fact that the computer was given to her, she taught at the school for more than 20 years. Prior to that, her father was employed there as an administrator for almost 40 years (this is an exclusive private school (K – 12)). I know she has attempted to contact them with little result. She was promised connectivity through their domain after her retirement but it was abruptly cut off with no explanation.

She is not very IT savvy, nor am I for that matter, and short of taking the laptop to the school and hoping to find an Administrator to instruct an IT person to assist her with the domain removal I see little reason doing that unless all else fails.

Thanks for your help

Crapgame

 

For clarity when you try safe mode does Administrator account show up on the Welcome screen? It sounds like it doesn't but if it does what message do you get when clicking it?

 

Administrator logon does not show up there. It appears that the laptop is set to only access through the domain.

Thanks again for your help

Crapgame