It's a while since I dabbled with Win 2k, but don't you have a "BOAC" username with Admin privileges, and a separate "Admin" with its own password?
Under Win XP I was advised not to use the "Admin" account as the primary user, for the very reason that you've just found out.
When I deleted the "Keith" account on my old PC in error a couple of years ago, I then took to being "Admin" because there was no option. That gave me access to all my stuff. I just couldn't recreate the "Keith" account without laborious effort (which I didn't bother to do).