New Laptop All Accounts Locked

[Guest]

Hi, an over middle aged (not elderly) friend of mine bought a Toshiba laptop
recently. Another friend of hers set it up for her and created all the
accounts, but she is unable to login as the password she thought she had
doesn't work. She has tried a number of times to log-in ... clicking
everywhere including the "Reset Password" link under her user name.

Late last night we tried using the System Repair option by using F8 and
booting into safe mode, but couldn't get any further as it asked for a
password for the Administrator account - which she knew nothing about. And
when we tried logging in with her account through this console we received
the message that her account was now locked.

There were no recovery disks for the laptop.

Is there a way to set it back to factory standard and either
* run set-up again and create new passwords for her account and the admin
account OR
* try to discover what the passwords are and re-set them that way

 

[AJR]

Regarding "... clicking everywhere including the "Reset Password" link under
her user name..." will not be accessible since you must know the "old"
password before you can reset it. Also "...and created all the accounts,.."
what other accounts than a User account?

Toshiba provides a "Recovery and Application/Drivers" DVD check all the
packing material and packages. Check the printed documentation for
instructions on contacting Toshiba to obtain the DVD if not located.
Support may be available at 1-800-457-7777.

When the laptop is accesssible - and a new password set be certain to create
a "Password Reset Disk" which will permit access if the password is
forgotten..

 

[Guest]

Thnx for the response AJR, for the "Reset password" nothing seemed to happen
when it was clicked ... it just made the word "password" appear in the
password field. The accounts that were created were the standard
Administrator and User and there is also a Guest account.

There are no disks provided with this particular laptop, I checked the box
and documentation myself. According to the instructions on a sticker on the
cardboard box the laptop came in, a recovery disk had to be manually created
after the initial set-up to repair or restore the computer as the recovery
files (a ghost of Vista) was installed on a hidden partition on the hard
drive. This apparently was not done ...

So atm she is stuck with a 2 week old lap-top that is locked at the login
screen, no recovery disks, no passwords ... no nothing. And the shop where
she purchased it has said "tough luck ... buy a new hard-drive and OS and pay
us to put it in and set it up for you."

Needless to say she is not impressed with them, the laptop or Microsoft atm.

~ Trisha

 

[pvdg42]

Hi, an over middle aged (not elderly) friend of mine bought a Toshiba
laptop
recently. Another friend of hers set it up for her and created all the
accounts, but she is unable to login as the password she thought she had
doesn't work. She has tried a number of times to log-in ... clicking
everywhere including the "Reset Password" link under her user name.

Late last night we tried using the System Repair option by using F8 and
booting into safe mode, but couldn't get any further as it asked for a
password for the Administrator account - which she knew nothing about. And
when we tried logging in with her account through this console we received
the message that her account was now locked.

There were no recovery disks for the laptop.

Is there a way to set it back to factory standard and either
* run set-up again and create new passwords for her account and the admin
account OR
* try to discover what the passwords are and re-set them that way

Have either of you tried contacting Toshiba support to see what assistance
they can provide, especially as the laptop is ~ 2 weeks old.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_home.jsp

Another possibility (and, I admit this is not 100% honest), if the laptop
was purchased at a local retailer, take it back and simply say you have no
idea what happened. Ask them to "fix" it.