PC won't Boot.

A friend deleted something on her PC and now when she Boots it, it gets as far as the Logon Screen which says - "To Begin, click
your User Name ". This is on the left side of the screen, and the User Name ^should^ be on the right side, but that side is blank.

Would anyone know how to correct this?

 

Tell her to boot into Safe Mode...repeatedly press the F8 key as the computer boots. That should give her the option to logon as Administrator. If she never set a pasword on that main Admininstrator account...most people don't...just pressing the Enter key on the keyboard when it asks for a password should get her into Windows in Safe Mode.

From there she can go into Control Panel>User Accounts and set up a new account. Make sure it's got administrator status.

Then reboot and see if it will let her into the new user account so she will be in normal mode where she may be able to troubleshoot the problem a little better.

 

When Safe Mode is selected from the list (There is no Administrator Choice) it then goes to the screen I already mentioned previously, and there is no way to go any further.

 

Perhaps:

Use the Classic Logon Screen...
To temporarily use the classic logon screen, press CTRL+ALT+DEL twice on the Welcome logon screen.

A dialogue box to manually type in User Name and Password should show up.

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Lot's of possible fixers here:
http://kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

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Once inside setup a new user account with admin rights. You can also do a sfc /scannow or checkdisk /R command line from the startmenu runline. This is to make sure you don't have a corrupted file used for the welcome login such as a picture or screensaver/wallpaper thingy.

OR

When system does not start (the logon screen does not appear)

Use last Known good config:
Reboot your computer while holding or tapping the F8 key. Choose Last Known Good Configuration and press Enter.

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Hi Ann:

Thank you for the information. Everything is up and running again.

Much appreciated.

 

Phewww....

Wiping the sweat off my brow! I'm so glad this helped. While I have been using Xp for sometime, I have had no problems to build firsthand problem fixin' experience from. I usually run back to the win98 forum with my tail between my legs.

Thanks for the update and I'm really glad it worked!

 

Hi (again) Ann, with another request:

Do you know how I can transfer the settings from the "Old" account to the "New" account?

I thought I should add something also.

I had actually stumbled across the solution your suggested, but was stumped by the password, because my friend had not done the installation. All she ever did was click on her Username to login.

However, in my troubleshooting, I had also found the following document, which has to do with password retrieval, and thought it may be useful to someone else.

support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q318026

I did not get to try it because, fortunately, we were able to finally contact the installer who supplied the information required.

Thank you again for your assistance.

 

Click for a description of how to save account info when you delete an account and exactly what is saved.