I no longer have access to an Administrator account on my laptop

Question

I no longer have access to an Administrator account on my laptop

Oliver Fitchett 0

For various reasons the only active account on my Laptop is a standard and not administrator. The hidden administrator account is deactivated and I cannot reactivate it without an administrator account .

This means I am unable to even enter a password for things requiring administrator permissions. I attempted to fix this by going through safe mode but I got an error saying I was missing the file \windows\system32\winload.efi and only gave me options to try again, go into recovery mode ( Just put me back into the same menu), startup settings (Just flickered the screen) or I could go into Lenovo start menu. I was able to go back to normal just by powering my laptop off and on again and I checked but the winload.efi file was still present in the system32 folder so now I have no idea what to do. Ideally I need a way to reactivate the hidden administrator account

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Answer 1

Jeronimo Fuerte 39,435 Independent Advisor

Hi! If this is your device and does not belong to an organization, you could try to use Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to re-enable the built-in Administrator account with an official command. From your signed-in standard account, go to Settings > System > Recovery > Advanced startup > Restart now. In WinRE choose Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Command Prompt.

Then run: net user administrator /active:yes, close Command Prompt and continue to Windows, sign out, and you should now see Administrator on the sign-in screen.

Oliver Fitchett 0 Reputation points

2025-10-17T19:44:50.3766667+00:00

Thank you for your response but I already tried this. When I attempted to access WinRE I got an error saying "Your PC/Device needs to be repaired" and that the file "\windows\system32\winload.efi" is missing or contains errors and gave the error code 0xc0000225.
Listed below this were 4 options:
Press Enter to try again

This did nothing except flicker the screen

Press F1 to enter Recovery Environment

This restarted my device only to launch into the same error again

Press F8 for Startup Settings

This did the same as the first option

Press Esc for UEFI Firmware Settings

This took my to Lenovo's menu, something to do with a boot but I'm not entirely sure.

By simply turning my device off and on again I was back to my ordinary lock screen with no other issues and I was able to see that the winload.efi file is present within the system32 folder but I was no closer to accessing safe mode.
Jeronimo Fuerte 39,435 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-17T23:12:21.7133333+00:00

Sorry to hear this. Please boot from a Windows 11 USB installer and choose Repair your computer to enter WinRE. First run Startup Repair (Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Repair).

If it can’t fix it, open Command Prompt and rebuild boot files with BCDBOOT:

bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /f UEFI
Oliver Fitchett 0 Reputation points

2025-10-18T11:02:36.65+00:00

Can I make a windows 11 USB installer using any USB external drive and will I still be able to use that external drive normally after the process.
Jeronimo Fuerte 39,435 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-10-18T22:09:41.93+00:00

Yes, you can use it after as any other; before using it as an installation media, it is important to back up any information in the USB device.
Oliver Fitchett 0 Reputation points

2025-10-31T15:36:08.3266667+00:00

I used a bootable drive and gained access to the administrator command prompt however even though I activated the account "Administrator" I was unable to see it in the login screen. I tried to create a new user and add that to administrators group, this seemed to work but did not appear in the login screen and when I returned to the safe mode command prompt the user no longer existed.
Oliver Fitchett 0 Reputation points

2025-10-31T15:47:09.1766667+00:00

I should also note that trying to enter safe mode normally opens the menu but even using the inbuilt keyboard on my laptop it accepts no input. Safe mode only works when I enter after running the bootable USB and choosing to repair PC option then I reach a functioning safe mode menu

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I no longer have access to an Administrator account on my laptop

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