Windows 7 problem

Hannibal

Don't know if this is the right part of the forum but anyway:

My cousin has a Dell laptop with Windows 7 that she has had about 3 years no problems and she used it today and shut it down with no problems. This evening when she turned it on it asked for the password as normal and then a windows type screen came on saying something like "configuring desktop", she can't remember the exact words. The desktop came on and she noticed her normal wallpaper was gone, she went into Pictures to restore it.. all her pictures were gone, music was gone, all documents were gone like as if they had been wiped completely.
Icons of programs she had installed such as Firefox, iTunes, VLC etc were still there but when clicked into they're asking to be re-installed/downloaded. Strangely she had 10 or 20 things in the Recycle bin she deleted the other day and they're still in the recycle bin but apart from that you'd swear it was a new laptop.

Anyone have any idea what went wrong with it or how to restore or retieve her documents?

It sounds to me like user profile corruption. Her personal files should still be in a folder in the C:\Users directory.

For arguments sake, lets say the username is Laura and the computer name is PC1. The user profile should be in C:\Users\Laura but if it becomes corrupt for some reason, a new profile is created in C:\Users\Laura.PC1. Because it's using the new profile directory, it appears that everything has been lost but it's still in the original location.

Hannibal

Karsini wrote: »

It sounds to me like user profile corruption. Her personal files should still be in a folder in the C:\Users directory.

For arguments sake, lets say the username is Laura and the computer name is PC1. The user profile should be in C:\Users\Laura but if it becomes corrupt for some reason, a new profile is created in C:\Users\Laura.PC1. Because it's using the new profile directory, it appears that everything has been lost but it's still in the original location.

Very good thanks, I have the said laptop here.

How do I get these files back into her profile so that the computer boots up in the way it should?

it is as simple as copy and paste from C:\Users\Administrator into her profile? or do I have to make a new folder in the C:\User like "Laura" with thwe example given, as there's only Administrator, Public and TEMP being listed in the Users

It must be using Temp as the new profile directory so. There is a way that might recover the profile but it involves fiddling with the registry so I don't know how comfortable you are with that.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7576997_repair-profile-list-registry.html

The other option would be to create a new user and copy what you can from the old Administrator profile.

Capt'n Midnight

try system restore

Hannibal

Karsini wrote: »

It must be using Temp as the new profile directory so. There is a way that might recover the profile but it involves fiddling with the registry so I don't know how comfortable you are with that.

http://www.ehow.com/how_7576997_repair-profile-list-registry.html

The other option would be to create a new user and copy what you can from the old Administrator profile.

It won't let me create a new user. I go to Start/Control Panel/User Accounts and click on "Add or remove user accounts" nothing happens at all.
When I click on her personal folder on Start menu it has subfolders but they're all empty. All her documents, photos etc are still located in c:/Users/Admin so they're still on the computer at least.
When I go into "Documents" it has "includes 2 locations" at the top. I go into there and there's "My Documents" and "Public Documents". My Documents is et as "Default save location" and underneath that "Unresponsive". It's location is c:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile
This morning I turned it on and got the error code 0x80070005, on trying to open programs I get "access denied" a lot of time.
Csn this be fixed manually or should I bring to one of them PC repair guys?

Hannibal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

try system restore

I tried it earlier to no avail.
It has to be something small, every part of the computer is working perfect bar the profiles and security warnings not letting me open anything. I'm thinking maybe an installed update or something triggered it or maybe malware or a corrupted file.

_Kaiser_

Does it say that she has been logged in with a temporary profile (in the bottom right corner of the screen) after she's been logged in?

If so, notmally a full restart will cure it but assuming you've done this then step 2 here has worked for me in the past.

Usual Disclaimer: Done at your own risk! Editing the registry can cause irreversible damage to Windows in the wrong circumstances etc