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
    2021-04-24T22:56:18+00:00

    Pbug,

           Yes, I understand that you were just changing settings in your bios and that's how you got into the missing Pin problem.  Many others have mentioned that as a cause.  I'm going to speculate that there's something called Fast Boot and I assume Regular Boot that the bios picks for a windows startup.   I assume something having to do with that caused your problem.  So you are trying to fix your problem and turning on all services doesn't help you.   I would try Settings -> Account and then 

    turn "Require Windows Hello sign in for Microsoft .... " to Off.   Then at least you will get both a Pin signon and a userid signon in your login screen if you can get enough control of your machine to get back into Settings.

           I think I also understand why those of us who went into diagnostic mode or turned off all services have the Pin problem.   I am now going to use service in the programming sense.  When you turn all services off, your machine does it's normal login, takes the Pin you type in, calls the Pin service that fetches your stored/private Pin, and the service for the Pin doesn't answer because it's told not to start.   Then the part of the operating system that made the Pin service call fails with the worthless error message that is the title of this thread.  If the Pin service doesn't start, nothing is going to log you in with a Pin, and Microsoft, in my opinion should never allow users to stop that service or not start the service because you came in a particular way after the bios boot.   As evidence for my case, when I was able to restore my machine, turn on all services, my pin worked just fine. and was the value that it was before I had the problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-04-23T00:06:53+00:00

    Dryvlyne,   I'm curious.  You seemed really able to run msconfig.exe from a command line prompt.   I am able to run msconfig.exe from a command line prompt when my machine is operating normally.   I was able to get to Command Prompt when I had this pin problem, but when I would run msconfig.exe and other gui tools, some of them would fail saying I wasn't administrator (and the id I used was Administrator) or some other error message.     When I needed it with the pin problem, msconfig.exe wouldn't start from Command Prompt.   Do you think this sethc.exe has something to do with enabling msconfig.exe to run from command line?  And when I say Command Prompt here I mean one of the Troubleshoot options you see.   I found that Command Prompt would always take a userid and would never ask for a pin.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-04-18T23:27:37+00:00

    Hello I read all these posts and did everything to the letter and it didn't help, I belive in my case it is because I accidently went into msconfig and turned off everything rather than just turning off the certain thing I needed to please help also I do not talk here much if you could add me on discord that would be great! my username is: gocygo#4691

    If not that is fine I will try to talk here.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-04-13T15:26:39+00:00

    I ve got the same problem, but it s worse, like there is no "System recovery" or "Reset this PC" showing up in troubleshoot. All i can do is start in safe mode. Any tips on how can i save my PC?

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