Deleting a User Account that You Cant Access

Alicia

Distinguished
Mar 20, 2005
10
0
18,510
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I had to do a nondestructive system recovery awhile back. Now my computer has
only 120mb of memory. And I believe it's because of a user account that I use
to use before I did the system recovery. This user account has a large amount
of files on it, and I cant delete it. I don't have the option of loggin into
this account because the user account is no longer at the welcome screen or
in the Control Panel's User Account section. The only way I know that this
user account is still on my computer is because I went to C:/Documents &
Settings and saw it there. It wont let me delete it because it says Cannot
Delete: Access Denied. I'm in desperate need for help...
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Alicia wrote:
> I had to do a nondestructive system recovery awhile back.
> Now my computer has only 120mb of memory. And I believe it's
> because of a user account that I use to use before I did the
> system recovery. This user account has a large amount of
> files on it, and I cant delete it. I don't have the option
> of loggin into this account because the user account is no
> longer at the welcome screen or in the Control Panel's User
> Account section. The only way I know that this user account
> is still on my computer is because I went to C:/Documents &
> Settings and saw it there. It wont let me delete it because
> it says Cannot Delete: Access Denied. I'm in desperate need
> for help...

You need to take ownership of the files and folders. Take a
look here for the procedure:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&sd=tech

Nepatsfan
 

Alicia

Distinguished
Mar 20, 2005
10
0
18,510
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Thank you. That worked perfectly. I deleted that user account. But I checked
out my memory and I still only have 120mb. That seems odd because there's not
many files or programs on my computer. Does anyone know if the system
recovery effects your computer's virtual memory?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Alicia wrote:
> Thank you. That worked perfectly. I deleted that user
> account. But I checked out my memory and I still only have
> 120mb. That seems odd because there's not many files or
> programs on my computer. Does anyone know if the system
> recovery effects your computer's virtual memory?

You seem to be confusing memory with disk space on your hard
drive. When you deleted those files you would have recovered
space on your hard drive. How much memory your computer has
depends on the amount of RAM that's installed.

Do the following, go to Control Panel and double click on the
System icon. On the General page, look towards the bottom. How
much RAM is listed?

How much memory do you think you should have? Where did you
check your memory and see it as only 120MB?

Why did you have to run the system recovery? What issues were
you dealing with?

Post back with answers to these questions. Also include
information about your computer such as manufacturer, make and
model. Whatever info you can provide will be helpful.

Nepatsfan
 

Alicia

Distinguished
Mar 20, 2005
10
0
18,510
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I have a Hewlet Packard HP Pavillion 551 W. I have Windows Xp. I did a system
recovery because my internet wouldn't work and then when windows loaded
nothing would show up. I guess it was do to spyware. Yeah I think I was
getting memory confused with disk space. I keep getting messages that my
virtual memory is low. And I cant install any new programs because it says I
don't have enough space. 1.61 GHz and 120 MB of Ram is what it says.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Alicia wrote:
> I have a Hewlet Packard HP Pavillion 551 W. I have Windows
> Xp. I did a system recovery because my internet wouldn't
> work and then when windows loaded nothing would show up. I
> guess it was do to spyware. Yeah I think I was getting
> memory confused with disk space. I keep getting messages
> that my virtual memory is low. And I cant install any new
> programs because it says I don't have enough space. 1.61
> GHz and 120 MB of Ram is what it says.

I just checked the HP web site. Your computer comes standard
with 128 MB of RAM. I'm guessing that 8 MB are shared with your
computer's video adapter. That would account for your seeing
120 MB of memory. That said, the amount of memory installed on
your computer barely qualifies as the minimum needed to run
Windows XP. Your computer has two slots available for memory
chips. If at all possible, install at least 256 MB of
additional memory. A 512 MB chip would be even better. Places
like Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA often have these items
available after rebates for less than $40 (512 MB) and $20 (256
MB). If you plan on keeping your computer for any length of
time it will be money well spent.

Not to get too technical but since you don't have a lot of
physical RAM, Windows will use a portion of your hard drive as
virtual memory. Not having enough free space on your hard drive
would certainly account for the low virtual memory message.

If you want to read up on virtual memory, take a look at this
article:

As for your hard drive space, go into My Computer and right
click on your C drive. What does it show for Used space, Free
space and Capacity? Post back with that info.
According to HP, your computer comes with a 30 GB hard drive.

Nepatsfan
 

Alicia

Distinguished
Mar 20, 2005
10
0
18,510
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Used Space: 20.2 GB
Free Space: 12.0 GB
Capacity: 32.3 GB

Thanks for all the help. ;) What I don't understand is that before I did the
system recovery, my computer ran fine and I had a lot of free space. But,
ever since I did the system recovery, I hardly have any free space. I've done
a defrag, I've done a disk cleanup, and I've deleted files and programs that
weren't needed.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Alicia wrote:
> Used Space: 20.2 GB
> Free Space: 12.0 GB
> Capacity: 32.3 GB
>
> Thanks for all the help. ;) What I don't understand is that
> before I did the system recovery, my computer ran fine and I
> had a lot of free space. But, ever since I did the system
> recovery, I hardly have any free space. I've done a defrag,
> I've done a disk cleanup, and I've deleted files and
> programs that weren't needed.

You've got 12 GB of free space on your C drive. That's plenty
of space to install new programs. I have no idea why you'd be
getting low disk space error messages.

Here are the only things I can think of suggesting:

1. Contact HP tech support to see if they have any ideas on
what could be causing this problem?

2. Post your question to a newsgroup that gets more traffic
than this one. The Windows XP General newsgroup would be a good
place to start. It can be accessed here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.general&lang=en&cr=US

Make sure to mention the make and model of your computer.
Include the fact that you've performed a non destructive system
recovery and are getting low disk space error messages in spite
of having 12 GB of free space on your C drive. The more
information you can provide, the better.

And finally, here's my personal opinion:
Since your non destructive system restore only created a new
set of problems, it may be time to cut your losses, backup all
your important files and start over with a fresh installation.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Nepatsfan
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:44:01 -0700, Alicia

>Used Space: 20.2 GB
>Free Space: 12.0 GB
>Capacity: 32.3 GB

Looks a bit small, that hard drive, doesn't it? Almost like a larger
HD that's jumpered to pretend to be a 32G (a size that doesn't occur
in nature) in deference to an old BIOS that can't read over 32G.

Or perhaps it's 32G C:, more space on other volumes (which is good) or
32G C: and 8G "reserved" for the OEM's tools.

8G is a lot of lools, though.

>Thanks for all the help. ;) What I don't understand is that before I did the
>system recovery, my computer ran fine and I had a lot of free space. But,
>ever since I did the system recovery, I hardly have any free space.

You've got free space; 12G is enough to avoid shrieks of horror from
the OS or anything else. I think I know what the problem is, though.

>I've done a defrag, I've done a disk cleanup, and I've deleted files and
>programs that weren't needed.

Rt-click on My Computer, click Properties, click Advanced tab, then
the Settings button in the Performance section at the top. From
there, click the middle Advanced tab in the dialog, and look at the
last section, on Virtual Memory.

I'll bet you'll have some pathetically low value there, like 192M - as
if a total of just over 256M is enough memory (i.e. RAM + pagefile) to
everything your Windows and apps need to do.

If so (and it will be, by duuuuhfault), do this:
- click the Change button
- under Custom size, set minimum (initial) to 512M
- for maximum size, set 512M or higher
- OK your way out, expect to be prompted to restart Windows

The answer's in my last post as well, I know, but that was a LONG post
and you might just not read it to the very end (been known to happen)




>------------------------ ---- --- -- - - - -
Forget http://cquirke.blogspot.com and check out a
better one at http://topicdrift.blogspot.com instead!
>------------------------ ---- --- -- - - - -