Failed profile load

Miró

Running Vista +SP2

IE9

　

Fired up the computer, which seemed to take longer than normal. Logged in as usual, (just one user account on this pc which is the admin account), and on accessing my account my desktop was completely changed. The background was different and lots of my desktop icons were gone. Some progs have disappeared along with all of my photo/music/film/favourites files!

This message appeared:-

Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile.

Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator.

Now whenever I log in there is only my one user/administrator account showing so I am confused as to whether this is now working or am I still on a temp, (unseen on log in page), profile. Any changes that I make such as new progs or files that I add do re-appear when I re-boot but I still cannot access any of my old files and the desktop background is still different.

Have tried doing a System Restore to various restore points but that didn't work. Have tried setting a new restore point now, just in case, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

I did have everything backed up on an old external hard drive, which has been a little unreliable lately, but now find, (of course!!), that it is not working.. New one on order! I am not sure if the files are still there somewhere or not, the C drive does appear to have more free disc space than usual. Fortunately I do have all my photos, music and films stored on a new laptop.

Can anyone help me to sort this out please? Would love to know what happened and why and how to put it right and most importantly get all my old files back. Have spent two whole days faffing about so far and have got nowhere! Would using the recovery discs and starting again sort it out, (would prefer not to if possible as would mean 6 years worth of updates!) Please assume a low level of tech acumen....any help would be very, very gratefully received.

closed

look elsewhere on the hard disk for your data http://www.voidtools.com/ , if it really has gone, recuva might find it.

what's wrong with the external drive

run chkdsk c: /F

reboot

using recovery discs (factory restore is a faster way) will probably lose your data, so backup first - your post is confusing, what files will you lose if they are on another machine?

Miró

Sorry for any confusion . I meant that I have the really important stuff backed up on 2nd computer but not all. Would like to get everything back if I could.

The external hard drive is the old type that powers into the mains. When I switch it on it is dead....usual lights dont come on, no whirring sound and nothing happens. (Have checked fuses and connections and all seem OK)

closed

1st use the tool linked to, or windows explorer/search to see if you can find the files

portable hard drives are less problematic, but you may be able to get at the old usb disk data in a different caddy or attached to another machine if the interface/psu is dead

chezybezy

where are your old files that you are trying to access? even if your profile is corrupt your data shouldn't be. i feel your pain r.e. the back up drive failing, im still wading through 100gb of recovered files a year down the line!

e: wait....reread youve got most of it backed up (on an external hdd? but your back up is failing??) and you were wanting to only get the stuff on your pc to allow you to have a complete back up right?

or are you trying to recover two sets of data?
trust me when i say this patience is required! and to increase your recovery chances its best to not use the machine your trying to recover data from.

how techy are you? if you happy to swap out hard disk drives (HDDs) then you could try removing the external hdd from its case and using an adapter and try plugging that into a computer to see if the actually hdd is fine. ONLY do this if the back up external hdd is mainly dead but you need the files off of it i.e. you've nothing to loose by trying.

There is the option of using a company / recovery software both (usually) cost and it is down to how much time you want to spend on this and how badly you need the data.

however im taking you further along then you need to be at the moment so just follow the ideas from my fellow MSE members above!

Miró

closed wrote: »

1st use the tool linked to, or windows explorer/search to see if you can find the files

portable hard drives are less problematic, but you may be able to get at the old usb disk data in a different caddy or attached to another machine if the interface/psu is dead

:j Yay, used http://www.voidtools.com/ as you suggested and the files are still there!!!! Thank you soooo much...now copying them back to where they used to be! Will be a long job methinks but worth it.

Just a bit concerned about the profile problem (Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off) if it still is classed as a temp one when I log in.

closed

It would be safer just to create a directory somewhere, and move or copy the data there, then backup properly, burn to dvd (copy not move), copy to flash drive etc until you get the external drive working. Keeping data within profiles can cause this panic when they get corrupt or don't load, bad design really.

When you are happy the data is safe, look at the profile problem, run chkdsk, system restore to last week, if that doesn't work, just create a new user. macrium disk image backup would have been useful in this situation, it's free, see speedup sticky

scheming_gypsy

Been a while since i used vista so i can't remember the profile location.

If it's the same as XP then it'll be C:\documents and settings.
If it's the same as Windows 7 it's c:\users

in there you'll see a list of all profile folders. If you're still logging on as a temporary profile you'll see one called temp and the other will be your old one. Rename your old one - just add .old onto the end of the folder name.

Then click start > run > (type in) regedit and click ok.
Then you want HKEY_LOCALMACHINE > Software > Microsoft > Windows NT > CurrentVersion > ProfileList.

Expand Profile list and you should see some folders, two will have similar names but one will end with .bak. If you click on each of these in the window on the right you'll see that the one with .bak on the end has a ProfileImagePath that points to your old folder and the other points to c:\temp

When you're logging on with your account it's loading your SID, but as it's created a back up it's pointing to temporary one.. Delete both of the SID folders and reboot.
When you log back on again it'll load another clean profile. Go back into c:\users and you should see that the temp one has disappeared, your old one is there and you have a new one with your username.
All your old stuff is in the one you renamed, the PC is using the new one and you can copy everything you need from the old one to the new one.

Miró

chezybezy wrote: »

where are your old files that you are trying to access?
Docs/Pictures/Films?music files on my desktop


even if your profile is corrupt your data shouldn't be.
When the profile problem happened all my personal files seemed to disappear and I could not get access to them in the usual way

i feel your pain r.e. the back up drive failing, im still wading through 100gb of recovered files a year down the line!
1TB portable hard drive ordered and on its way!!!!

e: wait....reread youve got most of it backed up (on an external hdd? but your back up is failing??) and you were wanting to only get the stuff on your pc to allow you to have a complete back up right?
My old ext hdd with everything on it seems to have failed, I have all the really important personal stuff, photos music etc backed up on a new laptop. Still got a lot of other stuff on the broken ext hdd but no matter. Thrilled to have recovered some stuff on the desktop thanks to 'closed's help.

or are you trying to recover two sets of data?
trust me when i say this patience is required! and to increase your recovery chances its best to not use the machine your trying to recover data from.

how techy are you?
Ha ha....NOT!!!!

if you happy to swap out hard disk drives (HDDs) then you could try removing the external hdd from its case and using an adapter and try plugging that into a computer to see if the actually hdd is fine. ONLY do this if the back up external hdd is mainly dead but you need the files off of it i.e. you've nothing to loose by trying.

There is the option of using a company / recovery software both (usually) cost and it is down to how much time you want to spend on this and how badly you need the data.

however im taking you further along then you need to be at the moment so just follow the ideas from my fellow MSE members above!

Many thanks for your reply....having got back some files I am just concerned that stuff does not disappear again!!! Would really like to understand why the profile problem happened and why everything disappeared when it did!

Miró

closed wrote: »

It would be safer just to create a directory somewhere, and move or copy the data there, then backup properly, burn to dvd (copy not move), copy to flash drive etc until you get the external drive working. Keeping data within profiles can cause this panic when they get corrupt or don't load, bad design really.

When you are happy the data is safe, look at the profile problem, run chkdsk, system restore to last week, if that doesn't work, just create a new user. macrium disk image backup would have been useful in this situation, it's free, see speedup sticky

Got a new 1TB portable hdd ordered...will get everything on there as soon as it arrives. Have done a few system restores but didn't seem to help.

Many thanks for your help.

closed

profiles/disks can get corrupt for various reasons, one way is not shutting down properly

you appeared to lose your data, because windows stores all pics etc under the profile by default, so when it loads a temp profile, there is no data under it, but the original data is still there on the disk, just not under my music etc for your user

The system might work a lot better after a reinstall, 6 years of bloat tends to make them sluggish, always backup first, multiple places, multiple media.