Unable to verify account on new laptop

A neighbour has lent me her brand new laptop because she wasn't able to log in. For some reason she didn't get the login info.

I have formatted the machine (this had two advantages: 1. Sure way to get rid of any OEM junk, 2. could set up the account how we wanted).

Unfortunately I am unable to verify the account because its keeps wanting to use a secondary email address thats not listed on the MS account page (she no longer has access to it).

How can I verify the account?

Thanks for the pointer, will try this out this evening when its not so hot!

hmm looking at this now, MS don't make it easy to adjust things. I had to use my mobile number in order to get in to security and now I won't be able to change it until next MONTH!

Its not the phone number I'm concerned about here. In order to send a verification email it wants to send it to an email she no longer has access to. So I'm a bit stuck as to what I can do next.

I use the ms authenticator on my iphone I was looking at my security info and realized that the phone number was my old one. When I went to change it it prompted me for my authentictor number. Even though my iphone had a new number I still got the code, thru the app. Is it possible to activate and use app, instead of phone number. If not don't push it, you could end up getting locked out. If you cannot do this, then as a last resort call microsoft.