Replacement of system with system.bak blocking future access to Recovery Console

My laptop was having hard drive problems and eventually fell into an error saying missing or corrupt c:\windows\system32\config\system. This prevented windows from even trying to load. I called dell and had them send me the CD's. First I used recovery console to replace system with c:\windows\repair\system this let windows load up but now it had a lsass.exe error saying "When trying to update a password the return status indicates that the value provided as the current password is not correct"

I went ahead and did a dirty reinstall of windows hoping to keep from loosing my files. Which I did find safe eventually... I went to use recovery console again to clean the partition then reinstall windows but now the recovery console asks for an Administrator password. I later tryied to use dell's system restore from the partition but it seems it is broken now and to fix it i think I need to be able to use the recovery console.

Well what im hoping someone can answer is both why that admin password is there now when i didn't use to have a password and either what it is. I assume it must be some preset one by dell if its not just some computer confusion. Oh by the way the hard drive is working fine now..

This is a slightly touchy area but i hope the moderators can see it is a technical issue that needs resolved as apposed to a password issue that cannot be disscussed