Something happened and your PIN isn't available. Click to set up your PIN again.

Anonymous
2020-07-12T23:16:34+00:00

* * Locked * *

I have a new PC with W10. I decided to use the PIN code, but now I get the message "Something happened and your PIN isn't available. Click to set up your PIN again."

When I click 'Set up my PIN' nothing, the same message reappears.

I looked up the issue on the internet and found that I should login using another sign-in option. However, there is no way to get to another option. The text above is all I see on the screen.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows Hello, lock screen and sign-in

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2020-07-12T23:37:28+00:00

Hello there! I'm sorry that didn't work. You can try this steps instead:

Turn off your PC

Start your PC, just as Windows attempts to load (spinning dots), press and hold Power Button on the casing of your PC for 5 - 10 seconds to perform a Hard Shut Down

Do this twice

On the third start Windows will boot into the Recovery Environment and from there you can access System Repair, Safe Mode, Command Prompt . . . etc.

Please try each option one at a time, then see of Windows will boot . . .

Go to Troubleshoot - Advanced Option - Startup Repair

See if Windows startup can repair itself

Go to Troubleshoot - Advanced Option - System Restore

Check to see if you have a restore point you can go back to

If you do not have a Restore Point, go to Troubleshoot - Advanced Option - Startup Settings and click Restart

Upon restart, press 4 to enter Safe Mode

Once in Safe Mode, backup your data if you do not already have a backup

Open Device Manager and check to make sure all your Drivers are up to date

Reboot to see if Windows will start Normally

If the above fails, go to Troubleshoot - Advanced Options - Reset this PC

Choose to keep your files and apps, just your files or to keep nothing

Then start the Reset

Hope this will do the trick

Regards,

Louie

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-02-12T09:37:50+00:00

    Hi, I appreciate your help. I made a recovery USB stick on another Acer Aspire laptop, but when I tried to use it on my problem Acer Aspire laptop, a message said "boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors", error code 0xc000014c. So I am back to square one, still locked out. By the way, it seems my laptop cannot connect to the Internet now, which would explain why I cannot simply forget about saving anything and installing a fresh version of Windows.

    Thanks again

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-02-12T18:07:12+00:00

    danglon,

    Your are in a difficult situation.  I'm not sure this will help but here are some more thoughts I had on the matter that I posted somewhere else:

    I was looking at msconfig Services this morning and I see why a lot of people are having this problem.   One Microsoft tech thread had 1000+ “I’m having this problem too” on the pin loop situation (this thread).  Services has a “Disable All” option and it is my contention if you have Pin enabled and you Disable All Services you put yourself in a very bad situation (can’t sign in with the pin you know and you can’t reach any other login options).   Disable All is easy to do and I’m sure most people think they can’t hurt themselves by choosing it.   They want to try something and then they would turn all Services back on.

    I know this recovery thumb fix doesn’t show profound understanding of the underlying components.   I got out of the Partition selector because I wanted to look some things up about it, not because I thought the next login was going to give me a user prompt.   But the general theme here is if you are having this pin problem try a bunch of different boot cycle options to see if you can wake up the userid login one time.   I know that at least the first time going in and out of the Command Prompt login woke the userid login option for me.  It makes some sense to me that connecting to a thumb recovery drive might disrupt the pin only boot cycle.

    I like Pin but after these problems I wanted to turn it off because losing the whole machine is high cost.  In my opinion it’s almost impossible to turn the Pin prompt off once it’s set up.   My Windows Hello is turned off and Windows is still demanding a pin at signin.   One benefit of toggling Windows Hello off is that Userid Options icon came back to my signon screen after I toggled it off, incredibly important.

    One other thought about getting out of this problem.   If you are using Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise I’m almost positive Remote Desktop will demand a userid login, not a pin login.   It didn’t help in my situation because I have Norton Firewall on by default and it blocks the port (I turn the firewall of when I want to use Remote Desktop).

    People talk about artificial intelligence but this is the opposite.   Whatever developer put out the "Something happened and your Pin isn't available" message isn't thinking very clearly.   In my case my non logged in screen prompted me to obtain some software from the Microsoft Store after clicking the pin message.  The Developer/Spec writer should have realized that anyone at this state is in very grave danger and offer other signon options.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-02-13T08:49:34+00:00

    Which method did u use ? Please help me

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-02-13T09:48:48+00:00

    Pretty messy situation indeed. And I have to use an APPLE IPAD to be able to communicate. Great job Microsoft. I hope you’ll think of giving me a discount for the yearly suscription I fork out.
    I am serious!

    To return to your comments and attempt at helping, Flash7Gordon, my non-logged-in screen also prompts me to get an app, but nothing happens as I am unable to connect/somehow have bee disconnected.

    I guess my only option is to totally erase my computer, and reload windows, but how can I even do that since I can’t connect to the Internet?

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