Can't get around pin and password

Hello.. Probably something simple but I can't figure it out... This post looks like it could have gone in a few places.. This one looked the best.. If wrong section.. Sorry..

I have a computer from my mom's dead bf... He had a ton of passwords and found one that let me into windows......

When I tried to do anything it was asking for the account uac.. I can't find that one and it's on the worst setting.. I always shut that off... After trying a few things I took the hard drive out and brought it home.

I put it on my network to start looking through his files... There are a ton that I need the program itself to open... One was quicken... There is a lot of them... So I figured I would just remove his passwords with a program.

Bought active password remove and found his drive and cleared all his passwords.... I may have not only done that drive but I dont remember seeing my c drive... It was on his only...

I used the usd external and booted into bios and tried to boot from it.. It would not work and windows repair said it could not fix it..

It tried doing boot priority and the disk was not showing up... It was everywhere else just not priotry...


I read that I have to turn off cms in the bios to be able to boot from it.. Asus x870 E......

Bingo it worked.... Booted into drive took a few min to load drivers but I was in and passwords were gone..... I was going back to it over the weekend.. No hurry..

I reboot into my bios and choose my ssd c drive Samsung like always... Didn't think too much about it...

It said Something happened and your PIN isn't available.. My fingerprint would flash hello and go right back to the message... I tried using password... No.. Pin... No.. Reset pin didn't do anything.. Zippo...

Tried to go into safe mode and shift was not working... Tried the pulling power 3 times.. Nothing... Weird...

Said OK let's do a restore it's only a few days old... Bios and made sure i put cms back on and booted to backup... Macrium and found my image...

Went though the restore.. Worked.. Booted and same error... I thought the image would solve the problem... It didn't but I was able to get into safe mode to do a system restore... Once again I thought... OK.. No big deal

Same thing? How won't it let my by my password? That's a image and a windows restore...

I found a few posts.

1. \Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Ngc /T /Q /C /RESET and hit Enter. Restart your computer.

Tried a few if the options and nothing worked...

So.. I did a reset using safe mode and kept files.... Thought.. OK.. That's will be it... Nope

Full reset and still won't let my back into windows... Scan.. Password.. Or pin... Nothing.. Tried unplugging scanner... Nope... Nothing...

If I were back in my teens.. 20s..30s.even 40s..i would grab a few beers and close the door over the weekend....

I Just can't do it like you guys anymore... Three plus hours and I can't figure it out....

Is my only option format?... Crap.. I have not done that in years... I have a copy of windows canary from about six months ago on a drive....

I'm done for the night.. If anybody has any ideas I would love to hear them.. I'm out of ideas.

Thanks a ton

Is there anything on the drive you need? If not then why don't you just reinstall Windows? If it was previously activated it should activate again.

MisterEd said:

Is there anything on the drive you need? If not then why don't you just reinstall Windows? If it was previously activated it should activate again.

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I thought doing the repair was basically reinstalling windows. Refresh was what I thought I was doing.

budeone said:

I thought doing the repair was basically reinstalling windows. Refresh was what I thought I was doing.

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I have found that repair does not always work. If it doesn't then a clean install is necessary.

budeone said:

I thought doing the repair was basically reinstalling windows. Refresh was what I thought I was doing.

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It does. But it also retains all your previous settings. So if you have created some sort of authentication issue, it likely will not be able to correct that.

Evidently (according to your "My Computer" specs) you are accustomed to using multiple drives on one PC. If you need to access the data on the drive in question you can do it from a separate OS in Windows Manager. If you don't need access to the data on that drive then a fresh install would likely be in order. At any rate Disk Manager would likely be your best choice if you want to format the drive or access the data on it when you can't log into the existing OS on the drive.

Scannerman said:

Evidently (according to your "My Computer" specs) you are accustomed to using multiple drives on one PC. If you need to access the data on the drive in question you can do it from a separate OS in Windows Manager. If you don't need access to the data on that drive then a fresh install would likely be in order. At any rate Disk Manager would likely be your best choice if you want to format the drive or access the data on it when you can't log into the existing OS on the drive.

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I may try to format... Add fresh windows... Image restore... In my head that would work. But as I said systems have changed from irq and dma

budeone said:

I may try to format... Add fresh windows... Image restore... In my head that would work. But as I said systems have changed from irq and dma

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Absolutely. Yet even Win 11 still provides the Win 7 system image backup option and System Restore. Old rule of thumb is to err on the side of caution so if you do proceed with installing a fresh OS as a matter of safety and expediency it's a good practice to disconnect the data cables to all other drives first. After that you can reconnect them and you'll have a fresh OS to look at all those drives in Windows Manager on the reboot. Through that venue you can simply open each drive, have a look at what is there, and do ye olde drag 'n drop/copy and paste thing.

budeone said:

I may try to format... Add fresh windows... Image restore... In my head that would work. But as I said systems have changed from irq and dma

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As an alternative, you could swap out the existing drive (keeps it intact) and replace with a blank drive and do either the clean install or image restore.

budeone said:

I have a computer from my mom's dead bf...

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Whilst I don't doubt or question your bona fides, a lot of contributors to forums such as this are reluctant to offer detailed hacks or workarounds to enable users to access protected data and/or systems

budeone said:

I have a copy of windows canary from about six months ago on a drive....

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Just download a fresh up-to-date Win11 ISO from Microsoft and create a boot USB (using either Windows Media Creation Tool or Rufus)

MisterEd said:

I have found that repair does not always work.

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Both anecdotally and personally, I've found that any of the 3 Rs (Repair, Restore or Recover) frequently disappoint.

idgat said:

As an alternative, you could swap out the existing drive (keeps it intact) and replace with a blank drive and do either the clean install or image restore.

Click to expand...

I spent a little more time on it and did a full clean from safe mode.... I figured that was the only choice I had. Well.. Lol.. It still didn't work... I have no idea how that works.... So I grabbed me windows recovery drive and booted into that I did try the upgrade and just as I thought I had to do tbe full install.

I came back in the den and the computer was off... I turned it on and boom... The green screen asking me to repair it... I could not figure it out.... The \Windows\system32\winload.efi was the error and all the normal stuff didn't work so I looked up 0xc000000e was one of the errors... That's not a bad one...

Again.. No go... I found.. System may have expired... Never heard that one before.. I had nothing to lose..

1. Locate the System Date and Time setting (usually under a 'Main', 'System', or 'BIOS' tab).
2. Change the date to roughly 6–12 months in the past—or around the last time the PC worked properly.

It worked.... As soon as I booted back into windows.. I started a restore until I saw my icons back and left..... I'm going to upgrade to a new version and change the clock back we'd or Thursday...

idgat said:

Both anecdotally and personally, I've found that any of the 3 Rs (Repair, Restore or Recover) frequently disappoint.

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I must have been lucky in the past... I had great luck with it over the years ... Restoring from a Colorado back a while it was hit and miss... I'm not waisting my time again.. I could have saved hours and hours.

Glad to learn it worked out for you. Remember to save any important data to a separate drive before engaging in upgrade.