New laptop Login issue ./localadmin

[Joe182]

Hi,

A friend asked me to look at a new laptop they received for their daughter from educational services as they are not too tech savvy, whilst running the initial setup they said their daughter managed to get ahold of it and they are not sure what she has done.

It loads to windows and automatically gives an incorrect password message for ./localadministrator, it is possible to switch to other user but it won't let me log in (I connected to wifi).

Next step I assumed system recovery would be the best option to start again but in the F11 recovery menu it is giving the error 0xc0000098 for the BCD file.

I have a windows 10 boot drive(USB) so tried this next but the BIOS has a password so unable to boot from there.

Any ideas on if there is a default password on localadmin or if the device comes with an alternate factory reset/recovery method would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Joe

[WAWood]

@Joe182 

Sorry, but the answer to ALL of your questions is NO.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Win10 and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

[Joe182]

@WAWood

Thanks for the swift response, I just stumbled upon the HP cloud recovery tool after posting, it does not recognise the productID (with or without the #ABC) so won't let me continue.