Can't authenticate to admin account or restore windows

joea9

New Member
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2
Hi

I'm posting this on behalf of my sister who has brought me her poorly new HP Pavilion laptop to take a look at (she's accidentally downloaded and installed some scareware), but I'm stumped too.

The thing that's holding me back from fixing it, is that I can't authenticate to the admin account . Meaning I can't access msconfig, I can't install or uninstall any applications, can't get into 'HP Recovery Manager', I can't do anything really.

She has two Microsoft accounts, one is a user account, and the other is the admin account. I can log in to the user account without any problems, but cannot authenticate to the admin account when performing an admin function. Both accounts use Yahoo email addresses.

I've reset the password for the admin Microsoft account (via the web), and I can log into it via the web. But the same new password doesn't work in Windows when authenticating any admin actions.

I've rebooted and tried the admin password again, but it still doesn't work.

Looking online, the solution to this is to reinstall Windows, which would suit me fine, but I can't do that either...

When I restart the computer and hit F11 to access System Recovery, I get a screen saying:
You need to sign in as administrator, but there aren't any administrator accounts on this PC

At bottom of this page there is an option that says:
Forgotten Your password or cant see your account?

When I click on that option it then says:
This list only shows administrator accounts that have previously signed in to this PC

The only option then is to click 'restart', and it boots back up.

So, I can't do anything on the computer because the admin creds don't work, and I can't fix that because it won't let me reinstall Windows due to some issue with the admin account. But I can't check the admin account because the admin creds don't work :p

Does anyone have any ideas?
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASRock 990FX Killer
    CPU
    AMD FX 8320
    Motherboard
    ASRock 990 FX Killer
    Memory
    32gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte GTX 750i
    Sound Card
    Realtek (Stock on MB)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ASUS 27 HD Monitor & a 37" LCD HD TV Screen (For movies)
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    1 250 GB SS hard drive for OS
    1 1TB hard drive for data / mirrored to a second 1 TB hd.
    PSU
    650W
    Case
    No name tower
    Cooling
    Enermax Liqtech 240
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech
    Internet Speed
    Dnload 10.48 Upload .48
    Browser
    IE 11 and Chrome when IE doesn't work
    Antivirus
    F-PROT
Thanks for the reply, so I need to:
  • download the iso
  • create a bootable USB stick from iso
  • install Windows onto the laptop using the USB stick

I'm assuming that if the laptop didn't come with separate installation media etc, then it must have an OEM license. And therefore the license should be automatically picked up when reinstalling Windows?

I don't have the laptop in front of me at the moment, but it would be good to know if that's correct in theory.

I'm a bit worried I'll start reinstalling Windows and then find it won't find the Product Key, or accept the current one?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
In theory, yes that is correct. If the new laptop is a new one and has UEFI bios, then yes the OEM key will be in the bios and you will be good to go. If not, you will then need an OEM key. I'm not sure of how you go about doing that...but search for it on this site and you will find it how to do it. Good luck!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
    System Manufacturer/Model
    ASRock 990FX Killer
    CPU
    AMD FX 8320
    Motherboard
    ASRock 990 FX Killer
    Memory
    32gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Gigabyte GTX 750i
    Sound Card
    Realtek (Stock on MB)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ASUS 27 HD Monitor & a 37" LCD HD TV Screen (For movies)
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    1 250 GB SS hard drive for OS
    1 1TB hard drive for data / mirrored to a second 1 TB hd.
    PSU
    650W
    Case
    No name tower
    Cooling
    Enermax Liqtech 240
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech
    Internet Speed
    Dnload 10.48 Upload .48
    Browser
    IE 11 and Chrome when IE doesn't work
    Antivirus
    F-PROT
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