I need to wipe and reinstall Windows 8.1 because the administrator password has been lost, no password recovery disk is available and as the machine now only logs into the Guest account and you cant run the Dell Recovery and Restore from a Guest account without logging in as an admin
We have no data that needs backing up as the machine is being assigned to a new person in the company and we don't need any installed programs so we purchased the Dell OS recovery and restore USB for the machine in the belief that this would allow us to restore back to day one.
I was informed that the version of Windows that will be restored is 8.0 and then require upgrading again after... not a problem
Unfortunately the recovery process insists on running a data backup so it can be restored later ...
- If I shutdown the PC when logged in as Guest before running the USB OS recovery, when it gets to the Initialise Backup and Migration it goes to the desktop and does nothing
- If I log out of Guest before shutting down it sits in at the USB OS recovery screen with "Initialise Backup and Migration" "Please Wait" and the rotating processing icon
I have waited waited 2 hours after both the above and no apparent progress so had to force shutdown.
All tests up to this point find no errors ... well there aren't any, we just don't have the admin password !
There is not an option to bypass the backup and go straight to the restore
Any advice on doing a clean install ?
Many thanks
Chris
