Cannot log into a computer I purchased used

[ukcats270]

I purchased an HP notebook 2000 from an individual that had lost the power cord. It has Window 8.1 on it. He didn't think it was password protected, but after I got it home I found it is. I had a power cord that worked for it. He has his gmail account on it. I can only log in a guest. I'm trying to find a way to fix this without having to travel back to get him to log on.

I purchased Windows 10 thinking I could just wipe and reset, but it doesn't seem to want to boot off the Windows 10 disc I made. If I try to run it while logged on, it wants his password. I can't use the built in recovery options in the system without his password. I can't even run the command prompt as an admin. How can I just wipe this computer and his accounts and set it up like new?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

If you can boot from any type of installation media, that should bypass any need to enter a windows password.

Try making the bootable USB flash drive to install W10 instead of a disk. 

You will need a 4 GB USB flash drive for this project.

Use the media creation tool at the link below...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[ukcats270]

I tried that with both a USB drive and DVD. I put in the DVD or the USB drive and rebooted and it didn't seem to boot from it, so I went into the BIOS.

My boot menu options are:

     OS boot Manager

     USB Entry for Windows To Go (No Device)

     Boot From EFI File

I went into the system configuration boot options and it shows:

     OS boot Manager

     Internal CD/DVD Rom Drive

     USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk

     USB CD/DVD ROM Drive

     !  Network Adapter

I saw in another thread about changing the Secure Boot option. I disabled that and tried again, but got the same boot options. 

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

To boot from a DVD you have to enable legacy mode and disable secure boot.

See this guide for how to do that.

https://www.support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03736054/

Then you have to boot from the Internal DVD drive, not the EFI one if it shows up there.

Restart the PC, tap the ESC key to get the menu of options, select the F9 boot options menu, and select the DVD drive, and hit the enter key.

[ukcats270]

That was a huge help. I was able to boot of the thumb drive with Windows 10 image and made it through several screens when the following came up. I got this error for every partition. I tried to format them with the format option, but that didn't change a thing. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

OK...

What I would do if I were you would be to delete every partition on there by clicking on the red x delete link.

Then you should have one large partition.

Then restart the PC and see if these instructions work to convert the disk to mbr...

Method #1:
1. Boot up to installation DVD/CD/USB
2. Click install but don't follow through.
3. Press SHIFT-F10 to bring up console.
4. Type "diskpart"
5. Once inside diskpart type:
  -> list disk (find the one you want to convert)
  -> select disk 0 (select the one you want from the list)
  -> convert mbr (should take a second or two)
  -> quit
6. Continue with install

Method #2:
1. Boot up to installation DVD/CD/USB
2. Click install but don't follow through.
3. Press SHIFT-F10 to bring up console.
4. Type "diskpart"
5. Once inside diskpart type:
  -> list disk (find the one you want to convert)
  -> select disk 0 (select the one you want from the list)
  -> clean (wait an hour or so until its done)
  -> quit
6. Continue with install

If the Windows install disk doesn’t work for the above you can do the following to reformat your drive:

1. Download and burn a Gparted ISO from here:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

2. Boot from the Gparted disk.

3. Use Gparted to delete all partitions on the hard drive.

4. Under “Device” choose Create Partition Table to make a new partition table.

5. Create a NTFS partition (or you could wait and create a partition when installing Windows).

6. Then boot from the Windows install disk and install Windows.

[ukcats270]

I can't believe I missed the "delete". I deleted the partition and that worked. Thank you so much!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Glad to have been of assistance.