Help! I have no user on my laptop, can't do anything

T

TreeTiger

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I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago, but other half was using it until new Macbook Pro came out, with the result I only got started using my new Dell in the last week.

Other half had set up his name as a user and, as I want to use my name instead, I read up on how to change it but seem to have made a mess of it.

This morning, on starting up laptop, username appeared as the other half's but was looking for a password. Laptop started up without any password being entered. Thought maybe I should do a system restore, but when I clicked on "restore my computer to an earlier time" and clicked on "Next" nothing happened.

I restarted the laptop and things have gone from bad to worse. Now the screen shows the Windows xp logo and says "To begin, click your user name" but no user name is showing. Nothing happens if I hit F2 during startup.

Starting to panic now, any suggestions?
 
Not sure what your problem is but..

It sounds like perhaps the user account could be deleted while logged into itself which is a flaw I discovered in Win Xp about 2/3 years ago.

Boot up in safe mode and go to accounts and create a new user account or re enable your old account.

Booting up into safe mode should be explained in the user manual. To get there , you keep pressing the 'del' key or sometimes the function key number 2 while it boots up.
 
Thanks sign, sounds like you could be right about the user account. I booted up in safe mode (it was F8 to get there) and went to user accounts. Both Administrator and Guest accounts were showing (guest account is off) so I guess I must have somehow got rid of Administrator account while trying to get rid of the other half's.

So I set up a new account in my name, restarted, and it went straight to the desktop without asking me to log in as any user. Just started Firefox and it's running as if for the first time, all my bookmarks - and there were loads - have gone. Google Earth has disappeared, a couple of files I'd saved on the desktop have walked.

However, it's a big improvement on nothing at all ;) so thanks a million, really appreciate your help.

EDITED TO ADD:

Thanks again, have now been able to do a System Restore, so I'm back to where I was before I started mucking about. Lesson learned! Will try to get the other half to sort it, his name is already on 2 other computers on our network at home so I want to remove it off mine!
 
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TT you may not have lost your data, user accounts can be found on the C drive under documents and settings, the old accounts and their files may still be in this folder.
 
Thanks Deimos, my files are still there, thank God as I spent ages transferring them from my old laptop. Now to see how I can get rid of the other half's name from the new machine without bringing it to a standstill!
 
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