Vista Home Basic Security

[Badger]

Hi

I've bought my son an Inspirion 1525 off ebay (plenty cheapness), and it's arrived, boots up fine but has the blokes user account and the guest account.

I want to clear it down and set it up for my son but I cannot do anything with the Guest account (UAC stops everything) and do not know the password for the blokes account (I've emailed him but not confident of a reply). The Administrator account is disabled by default and I've tried the solutions from Google (boot in safe mode etc) but I still cannot access the Administrator account. Is there a way of resetting the blokes user password? I've done this before in XP by booting from a USB drive, but not sure about Vista.

Any help appreciated

[KevinS]

The seller is obviously a numpty and has probably left all his personal info on the machine so won't want you to have the password (likely it's the same as his fleabay account password).

Does the machine still have the recovery partition on? If so, boot using that (I suspect it's CTRL + F11) and let it reload Vista and you can create a username of your choice during the process.

[Badger]

Thanks KevinS for the quick reply.

Stupid question, it does have the Recovery drive but how do I boot from that?

Cheers

[KevinS]

It should be just pressing CTRL+F11 during the boot (when the DELL POST screen is showing) should force it into recovery mode.. Failing that F8 or F10 during the POST (or whatever the screen says is the key for 'Boot Options' should allow you to pick the recovery process.

[DaveB]

Thanks KevinS for the quick reply.

Stupid question, it does have the Recovery drive but how do I boot from that?

Cheers

IIRC F11 during the boot sequence, before it gots to the windows startup screen, should do it.

[VectraMan]

I assume you don't have a CD?

If it was me, I'd want to completely wipe and reinstall a second hand computer anyway.

[DaveB]

I assume you don't have a CD?

If it was me, I'd want to completely wipe and reinstall a second hand computer anyway.

If he can use the recovery partition that is what will happen. It reformats the OS partition and reinstalls from scratch. Equivalent to flattening it and installing from CD.

[Clippy]

I assume you don't have a CD?

If it was me, I'd want to completely wipe and reinstall a second hand computer anyway.

Ditto.

[Badger]

Nope, can't use the recovery option, as it asks for the administrator password which is disabled!

I'll reinstall, found the DVD under all the bubble wrap.

Thanks for the replies.

[chef]

sounds like it was stolen and the "seller" realised they couldnt login as they lacked the IT knowledge