Cant pull up command prompt. Please help!!😢

Question

Basically I had reset my computer, and when it fully reset I don’t have the password, so I go to the control panel by holding shift and restarting my computer and selecting command prompt, but instead of actually pulling up command prompt it just restarts my computer and makes me reopen the control panel again and so on and so forth. If you have any way of fixing this please run it by me! I’m getting desperate here.

Answer 1

Dear Aidan Merced!

Thanks for your feedback!

You may not be in the C drive

You should type

C: 

or

cd C: 

on the keyboard and you should be able to access the system32 folder (can try the full path of system folder)

cd C:windows\system32  

If you have any questions, please let me know. I'm sorry that I didn't get back to you as I was on vacation.

Best regards,

Yang.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Hello!this was very helpful but at the tutorial you linked “locked out of pc fix” when I followed the step of typing “cd windows\system32” into the command prompt it said “the system cannot find the drive specified” please inform me on a way to fix this if you can!

Answer 3

Dear Aidan Merced!

Welcome to the Microsoft Community!

This situation may indeed be caused by the corruption of the user account profile during the reset process. I agree with your suggestion that using USB installation media is a good solution. Let's explain the process in detail:

1. Prepare a Windows installation USB:

• If you don't have one, you can create one on another computer using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.

Download Windows 11 (microsoft.com)

2. Boot the computer using USB:

• Insert the USB boot disk and restart the computer.
• Enter the boot menu (usually press F12 or other function keys usually related to your device manufacturer).
• Choose to boot from the USB device.

3. In the Windows installation interface:

• Select the language and other preferences, and then click "Next".
• Do not click "Install now" but choose "Repair your computer".

4. In the advanced options:

• Select "Troubleshoot" > "Advanced options" > "Command Prompt".

Then follow the solution shared by our community users to create a new user account (for the originality of the solution, we will provide the link shared by the user):

Locked out of PC by Windows 10 - The fix is here! - Microsoft Community

After you try to create a new user, we will try to recover the password from the original account or back up the files to the new user account.

Before doing anything, please make sure to back up important data. The best solution is to remove the current hard drive and connect it to another computer to back up the data to prevent accidental deletion or damage. If the problem persists, further technical support may be required.

Of course, if the problem still exists, we may need to perform further system repairs and may need to try to overwrite or reinstall the operating system to completely solve the problem.

Disclaimer: Please ensure that you backup any important data, including Documents, Pictures, Videos, and more.  

Thank you for your understanding and support! 

Best regards,

Yang.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist