HELP HELP HELP - Laptop just 'deleted' main user account?!?!?

mrandmrsm

Just switched our laptop on this morning and it came up all funny - like the old computer desktop used to look - it flashed up with some windows one saying 'Vaio Gate' wasn't working so I just clicked okay.

Quickly shut down and switched the laptop back on

And now when I go to log on to our main account it simply tells me the user account failed to log on?!?!?!?

What do I do??!?!?

So scared - new baby and all our photos are on here!!!

Our laptop is a Sony Vaio VGN-NW20EF

Please please help!

steve1980

Windows recovery disk will fix it.

RussJK

Your photos are likely to be fine. Did you just have them in the 'Documents' folder?

Are you able to log into another user account on that laptop?

If so, you can navigate with Start > Computer > Drive C > Users, then look for the User name for the account that has stopped working. Then click on 'Documents' and everything will still be there.

It'd be worth backing them up to an external drive.

Afterward you have backed up, you can see if you can repair the profile. The official Microsoft guide is fairly involved:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215

If you have a recovery disk, the startup repair is easier.

Alternatively I've read briefly about a program that attempts to fix it itself called Reprofiler:
http://iwr.cc/reprofiler

robmar0se

It may be better to try and do a restore prior to when the system failed. To do this in Win 7 home, you need to either boot from the original win7 disk (if supplied), or from the recovery partition on yr hard drive - if the latter there should be something in yr manual etc about which key you need to press during the start-up process. Once you are able to start the system from one or the other you will be given a menu, choose system restore, and then select the date you believe is prior to the problem.

Hope it helps.

mrandmrsm

Thanks,
I can see our pictures although they are labelled 'Pictures' rather than 'My Pictures' which is puzzling? Can't see the file size either so can't be sure it all our pictures.
So if I ran a back up now it would be able to access everything on the laptop not just what is in this user (not the administrator)

Have tried to do a system restore and each time it asks for the main account/administrator password - I put it in and nothing happens or it tells there's been an error and the action can't be performed?

RussJK

If you right click on the 'pictures' folder, then do Properties - after a minute it should list all the files in there.

I would manually copy the pictures folder to an external drive, along with My Documents, My Music, etc.

Does system restore accept a password from a working administrator account?

closed

Make at least 2 copies of important data on different media (dvd+hd), and consider a disk image backup to external hd

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3333202

mrandmrsm

Now I'm even more scared just right clicked the 'Pictures' folder and looked at the Properties and there is nothing is there!!!!
There is no 'My Pictures' folder which is where all our pictures are. !?!?!?
The whole of the Main user file is 11GB with over 2,000 files - we don't have that many documents but we do have iTunes so I am now really scared that all our photos have disappeared especially as we have new baby boy!!!!

RussJK

They won't have disappeared. Go back into the user folder, and do a search for *.jpg

Also make sure you can view hidden files:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Show-hidden-files

then double check that there isn't also a 'My Pictures' folder.