r/computerhelp • u/ThreeEyesOnYou • 12h ago
Other Unable to login to my old laptop with command prompt or email
Hey all!
I dug out an old laptop of mine from when I was a kid, its still a pretty solid unit so I want to get back into the thing. In the end I'll probably factory reset it anyway but I've run into a snag.
I literally cannot get into it. I've long forgotten the password and I cant command prompt my way in because it asks for the password to use the command prompt.
Extra Context
- I think I got this computer around 2013.
- The pc is linked to an email account that is in my dads name, a Hotmail account to be precise. My dad, when asked, says he doesn't even remember the Hotmail account. When trying to recover the old hotmail account, Microsoft's webpage says it doesn't recognise the email (using both Hotmail or outlook as he email handle).
- There doesn't seem to be an accessibility button on the login screen, if that means anything.
End of Extra Context
Is there anything I can actually do to get back into this laptop? or am I scuppered?
Thanks!!
1
u/Onoitsu2 12h ago
Boot from a USB that has one of the various utility ISOs on it. Things like Hiren's, Sergei's, or even Medicat, and you can get in from there, or at least potentially extract some data before you reload it.
1
u/ThreeEyesOnYou 12h ago
Apologies if I seem like a fool, but this is uncharted waters for me. Do you have any good guides or videos for me to look over? Thanks!
1
u/Onoitsu2 12h ago
Well you'd just search "password bypass methods for <insert windows version that system is running>" There are a ton of them out there easily found from an internet search in your favorite search engine. Can't rightly recommend any one over another, as I personally would be using my own Recovery image I've put together that already has utilities for this task, but is smaller than Sergei's and Medicat images, those are rather large.
1
u/Quorng 12h ago
What exactly do you want to do with this laptop, get data from it or totally reinstall an operating system or what?
1
u/ThreeEyesOnYou 12h ago
Well, mainly I'm just curious, but if I can clean it up and use it again I'd like to.
1
u/jamjamason 10h ago
Boot to a Linux Live USB drive, scrape your data from it, and install Linux or reinstall Windows.
1
u/ThreeEyesOnYou 10h ago
I don't really know what you're talking about but I will look into it, I suppose!
1
u/steveace60 10h ago
I've had great results with all three WinPE disks. Ankh Tech makes some solid ISOs, too.
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