Is there a neat way to do contextual logging in a concurrent system?

Toshiba l450d-119 system recovery problem?

• i installed a broadband dongle which ended up in a software conflict so i uninstalled it in safe mode.Today, when the machine tries to boot up it attempts a Startup Repair; unfortunately this fails every time and it says "Startup repair has tried several times but still cannot detemine the cause of the problem" I looked at the log it produces but it passes all the individual tests. I also can't access the advanced options for system recovery & support, which appears on the Startup Repair dialog box as it demands I be logged in, which apparently I'm not (presumably as the machine never got to the windows login screen before trying the startup repair). The error message reads "you must be logged in to access system recovery options. If you are having trouble logging in please contact your computer administrator for assistance. please click OK to restart the computer." I've had a go at booting into the various advanced options (safe mode, safe mode with command prompt etc. but the outcome is the same). I also tried the Repair your Computer option from the advanced boot options screen, but after the screen where it asks you to choose the language and keyboard, I get the same login error mentioned above. Is there a way to repair or even run the hard disk based windows recovery (haven't got the recovery DVD with me as I'm away from home for a couple weeks) without logging into windows? I would have expected there to be but have yet to figure out how to do it. (there are no disks in the disk drive, no other devices attached to the laptop - I've tried it with mains power and with the battery and have not noticed any differences) Please help!!!

• Answer:

  Unfortunately I suspect you are going to have to wait until you get back and use the recovery DVD to boot from and repair/restore/recover that way. Your account seems to have been locked out and you have lost any previous administrator priviliges you may have had. If you could access the command prompt (safe mode with command prompt) from the F8 menu you could try typing the following DOS command: secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose This command will reset the security settings to default. You receive a "Task is completed" message and a warning message that something could not be done. You can safely ignore this message. Assuming the above works, you could then try the "repair your computer" option again from the F8 menu. After you complete these steps, standard user accounts may no longer appear on the log on screen when you start your computer or try to switch users. If you get this far contact me and I will give you instructions on how to enable this again. Sorry couldn't be of much more help than this.