Windows XP user Accounts Issue

DampCat · 21 Oct 2009 at 11:43

Hey guys.

I've been approached by a work colleague regarding his fathers home PC and somethign he has ballsed up. Unfortunately i dont know the answer t the problem as i dont use user accounts.

This is all teh information i have:
He had a default user named "Admin", and created a new account via the control panel. He accidentally set the new User to Administrator, and now apparently the old "Admin" user has dissapeared completely, along with all his iTunes library and settings and all that jazz.

Has it been overwritten after introducing the new "Admin" level user? Or must he have deleted it manually?

Is there any way to get it back?

AsLan · 21 Oct 2009 at 12:25

I don't know of any way you can create a new user with the same name as an exisiting user. XP starts off with a user name of administrator taht you can assign a password to when installing. Unless you tell the pc to require ctl-alt-del to log on you shouldn't be able to log on as this as it does show in the list of users. I have never tried addig administator to the user list during install but would expect this to fail.
Have a lool in the users and documents folder, you should see a folder for each user created. If you have logged on with admin rights you should be able to see the contents of these user folders and see if his data is still there.
You could also try forcig a ctl-alt-del logon, this is done within the security policies of the computer management admin tools, this would allow logon as the default administrator user.
Hope this helps.

DampCat · 21 Oct 2009 at 12:31

Cheers for the reply.

He didn't add an account named Administrator, he just gave it Administrator privileges. I dont know what the new account is called, so for sake of discussion we'll call it Marmaduke.

The impression I get is that there was a default user named Admin, or set up by whatever retailer he bought it from, and when he created Marmaduke, it has somehow replaced "Admin" on the user list.

I'll get him to check the users and documents folder to see what's in there.

cokecan · 21 Oct 2009 at 14:52

if the admin accounts docs and settings are still there you could just drop all that into the marmaduke account then he'd have all his itunes stuff etc back.

I don't see how creating a new user account would have deleted that admin one though, that just shouldn't happen

Raumarik · 21 Oct 2009 at 14:54

Tell him to have a look in:

c:\documents and settings\

There should be a folder for each user that's ever logged onto the PC in there, even if their account has been deleted in the windows control panel for users and groups. He'll have to be logged in as an admin to access it likely.

This is the location cokecan72 is talking about btw.

DampCat · 21 Oct 2009 at 15:00

I passed on your advice. Cheers guys.