Lost Administrator account

[Glynn Owen]

On 09/19/06 I lost access to the Administrator account of my XP Pro machine.
The cause seemed to be a file named NTUser.dat with a CRC error. XP did
create a kind of bogus Administrator account for me, but it doesn't have any
of the setup that I've done on the actual account over the past few years.

I do have another Administrator logon that I've been using, and I've been
trying to get it set up to replace the Administrator, but it seems that is
just impossible.

The backups I have don't include the NTUser.dat file, and I can't access the
Administrator directory even when I'm signed on with another Administrator
level account. Is there anything I can do to recover the use of this
account?

TIA,
Glynn

 

[neil]

Did you try system restore before trying to manually recover the settings.
And are you using pro or home.

Neil

 

[Glynn Owen]

Did you try system restore before trying to manually recover the settings.
And are you using pro or home.

Neil

I tried restore the very first thing, but it came around with the message
"Cannot restore. No changes made." The same thing happened with several
different restore points. I am using the Pro version of XP.

Regards,
Glynn

 

[neil]

Sorry I noticed when I read your post again the first thing you said was XP
Pro. (oops)
The way you explained "lost access to the administrator account" suggests
the built in admisitrator account or do you mean an account with
administrator priviliges. XPs built in administrator account is not normally
visible when you have your own named user account (with or without
administrator priviliges) but if you need to use it it's there for safety.
To access it press cntrl/alt/delete at the login screen but keep them
pressed for 2 or 3 seconds. You will see the old style login screen, there
you type the user name administrator and whatever the password is (if not
set leave it blank). Don't change this account go to users in control panel
and create a new user name. You can then login to this new name. To access
the old users folders you may need to "take ownership" of the folders, do
this from the new users name.

Hope that all makes some sort of sense.

Neil

 

[Glynn Owen]

Sorry I noticed when I read your post again the first thing you said was
XP Pro. (oops)
The way you explained "lost access to the administrator account" suggests
the built in admisitrator account or do you mean an account with
administrator priviliges. XPs built in administrator account is not
normally visible when you have your own named user account (with or
without administrator priviliges) but if you need to use it it's there for
safety.
To access it press cntrl/alt/delete at the login screen but keep them
pressed for 2 or 3 seconds. You will see the old style login screen, there
you type the user name administrator and whatever the password is (if not
set leave it blank). Don't change this account go to users in control
panel and create a new user name. You can then login to this new name. To
access the old users folders you may need to "take ownership" of the
folders, do this from the new users name.

Hope that all makes some sort of sense.

Neil

It is the built-in Administrator account that I lost. I did have another
account with Admin access set up, and I'm using that account now.

Ctrl/Alt/Del does nothing at all from the logon screen. Even when I wait for
several seconds.

Typing in Administrator along with its password from the logon produces a
prompt from Windows that "Windows cannot load the locally stored profile.
Possible causes are inadequate security or a corrupted local profile."
Windows then proceeds to log me on named as Administrator, but without
access to any of the setup that the Administrator user had before this
happened. Also, this so-called Administrator account is strictly temporary,
and any changes made to it vanish when the computer is shut down or the user
is logged off.

When I log on under my own name, which is an account that has admin access,
Windows won't let me into the folder named "Administrator", so I don't see
how I can "take ownership" of the folders under that directory. It would
help if I could, but Windows won't let me access that folder from another
account.

Thanks for the thought,

Glynn

 

[neil]

Glynn,
I believe you would need to take ownership of the administrator folder to
gain access to its sub folders. You need to disable "simple file sharing" in
folder options (it's down near the bottom of the list of the view tab) then
right click the administrator folder and go to sharing & security.
If you have lost access to the built in administrator account then you need
to do a repair install to restore its functionality, see:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Neil

 

[Glynn Owen]

Glynn,
I believe you would need to take ownership of the administrator
folder to gain access to its sub folders. You need to disable "simple
file sharing" in folder options (it's down near the bottom of the
list of the view tab) then right click the administrator folder and
go to sharing & security. If you have lost access to the built in
administrator account then you need to do a repair install to restore
its functionality, see:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Neil
"Glynn Owen" <glynn.owen AT realthinclient.com> wrote in message
>"neil"

>>>"neil"

I managed to "take ownership" of that directory. Thanks for the
suggestion. A "repair install" just sounds too scary. I think I'll
stick with what I have. Thanks for the thought.

Glynn

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