How can I recover a lost 'admin account' on my PC?

Have you performed a system restore , to a date before this happened ?

No. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t even know how.

Ok. I figured out how to do a system restore, but it didn’t work. I chose a date before she even created her account, but my admin account was still gone, hers was still there. AGH!

Have you logged off your daughter’s account and logged in again under your original account?

Do you still have another adminstrator acccount?
Did you check your c:/documents and settings/ directory?
Did you check the bin?

You may want to look into undelete software, if you’re sure your data has been deleted. What ever you do, don’t do a drive cleanup or defragmentation. Once that is done, deleted data is far harder to undelete.

Two methods are available:

1— Go into safe mode & try the following:
Username: administrator
password: <blank>

if that does not work, then look up for the password reset cd for windows XP. Its a bootable CD which allow you to reset the password. I would left a link, but seems moderators are over-board with my links :).

You were likely using ‘user 500’ or ‘the’ administrator account which sometimes might not show on the welcome screen

from the welcome screen hold down ctrl-alt and double tap delete

username: administrator
password: [whatever it is]