Windows 7 Temporary Profile Problem

Lawlesz

Hi all,

Looking for some help here.

Yesterday after shutting down my laptop (Sony Vaio, Windows 7) it started an update. All was fine until I went to switch it back on, when it got stuck on the 'Welcome' screen after entering my password. It has happened a few times before and doing a System Restore normally solves the problem. However yesterday, after doing the System Restore and starting the computer up, it logged me in using a 'Temporary Profile'. In this profile, all my files, screen savers, pictures etc are all gone.

I did a bit of looking around online and seems to be a common problem on Windows 7 and Vista.

One of the suggested repairs was to do a regedit in Safe Mode, and find the profile, which had ''.bak'' after the profile name, and swap it with the temporary profile; I tried this but to no avail. (I understand this was a risky move)

The other suggestion was to create a new admin account and then go into the corrupted normal account and copy the data and files over; when I tried this I couldn't find the data on the computer.

Now I am afraid the files will have disappeared altogether, it is nothing important, just sentimental stuff like family photos etc. And of course, kicking myself now because it is so long since I backed it up.

I am not very tech savvy and perhaps I did something wrong along the way, but I think I followed the instructions to the letter. Most of the stuff I read, suggested these 2 methods, and most of the comments seemed to indicate that the methods worked for those who tried it.

I live overseas at the moment, and computer repair shops are hard to come by (even having internet is a bonus), and English speaking tech guys are probably even harder to come by, so was hoping for a DIY fix.

Has anybody any suggestions on how to retrieve my old profile and files?

Any help appreciated

Thanks

shanec1928

Your user data is in c:\users\username

Username obviously being what ever the profile was called

Lawlesz

shanec1928 wrote: »

Your user data is in c:\users\username

Username obviously being what ever the profile was called

Thanks for the reply. How do I find this? Should I log on to the laptop using my normal broken profile i.e. the temporary one? Where do I go from there?

Sorry if that's a silly question, as I said, I don't understand these things very well.

Thanks

It might be safest to log on with the broken profile, create a new admin user and then log on with that. You can then move the data across.

Whatever you do, don't try to copy the data to the broken profile temp folder because it will be deleted on logoff, I know someone who did this! :eek:

Lawlesz

Karsini wrote: »

It might be safest to log on with the broken profile, create a new admin user and then log on with that. You can then move the data across.

Whatever you do, don't try to copy the data to the broken profile temp folder because it will be deleted on logoff, I know someone who did this! :eek:

This is something I tried yesterday. I set up the new account as admin, and when I checked my own profile on the laptop, all folders were showing up as empty. Or have I done something wrong?

When you open the C:\Users folder, can you see a folder that corresponds with the original user name? If so, try to open it. You might get an error that you don't have access but if you're an admin, you can click Continue and it will let you in after a while (when it changes the permissions on the folder).

Lawlesz

Karsini wrote: »

When you open the C:\Users folder, can you see a folder that corresponds with the original user name? If so, try to open it. You might get an error that you don't have access but if you're an admin, you can click Continue and it will let you in after a while (when it changes the permissions on the folder).

Yes the folder is there, but when I try to check whats in the folder it is empty. For example, when I click on the 'desktop' folder, I don't get any of the files that were on my desktop.

Is it toast?

bonzodog2

You might try the Previous Versions tab of the property sheet for the folder, or free data recovery software like Photorec or Recuva.
If there are any high value documents (thesis, business records, video of child's first steps,...) consider making an image of the whole drive first.
Or boot up with a live Linux CD image from a USB stick and see what you can find.

CatInABox

Lawlesz wrote: »

One of the suggested repairs was to do a regedit in Safe Mode, and find the profile, which had ''.bak'' after the profile name, and swap it with the temporary profile; I tried this but to no avail. (I understand this was a risky move)

I know you said that you tried this this, but perhaps look again, as it's easy to make a mistake and not get it right. I've made a mistake on this before, and it looked like it didn't work , but in reality, I had accidentally put in a second "."

I've used and recommended this video as a solution before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyxD6ZG-jI

Sorry if this isn't any help, just thought I'd double check to make sure!

Lawlesz

CatInABox wrote: »

I know you said that you tried this this, but perhaps look again, as it's easy to make a mistake and not get it right. I've made a mistake on this before, and it looked like it didn't work , but in reality, I had accidentally put in a second "."

I've used and recommended this video as a solution before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyxD6ZG-jI

Sorry if this isn't any help, just thought I'd double check to make sure!

Hi, thanks for that video link. Sorry about the late reply, been on holiday.

Anyway, I had tried that trick already and it didn't work but have just tried it again now, as you say, I may have made a mistake.

So when i entered safe mode, it would not let me log in to the account again, just kept flicking back to the screen with the two user accounts. I have tried to get into the account the normal way, (not in safe mode) but I am getting a new message now which I didn't have before saying "the group policy client service failed the log on. Access denied."

I am no expert, but that doesn't seem to be a good thing. It is still possible to log in on the other account on the computer, i.e. the one which has not been turned to a temporary account.

Any ideas?