recovery consule/ hal and boot.ini

I've been having a few problems with the ntldr/hal.dll and boot.ini when trying to start up windows xp. most of these issues have been discussed in previous forums, so first i'd like to say i appreciate all the help already available. my problem is i can't get to the recovery consule to try things like 'fixboot' and 'bootcfg' and 'fixmbr' and any other tools. when i choose R in on the xp cd and go into recovery consule i am asked for the administrators password. and i don't know it! the computer belongs to my 16 year old niece and she can't remember what she used. is there anyway around this? i know i can disable it from windows but i can't get into windows. all i can do it boot the computer with a win98 boot disk. this allows me to see my c: drive and it's files, but no commands work as i get the error 'this program will not run in dos mode' so any and all ideas will be apperciated.

scowles

btw, it's a dell if that makes a difference. i know the recovery disk is not the same as a genuine windows disk but it still has the rc option.

 

Sorry scowles but per Rule #6, no discussion of how to avoid or get around a system password.