Restoring user account


  1. getaman
    Posts : 19
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
       New #1

    Restoring user account


    Hello!
    I managed to get a big problem last night. Not sure if this was caused by Windows System Restore or the uninstallation of HP Photosmart printer software. I was doing a reinstallation of the software and had to uninstall it first. It took very long the uninstallation and I had previously been worried that the System Restore point creating was disabled (had been an issue on another computer). So I checked the System Restore at the same time trying to find out.

    Opened the System Restore, clicked next and found four restore points (latest about 1-2 months old). At the same time I noticed that the desktop went dark (had a very bright desktop background image) and all the icons except for "My Computer" and "Recycle Bin" was suddenly gone. Looking more I found the entire Users folder with Desktop, Documents, Start-Menu, everything was gone. All other folders like Program Files, Windows were still there though.

    I managed to run a portable version of Undelete 360 on my USB memory stick finding that the contents of the User folder was either in the "deleted area" of the Recycle Bin (it was empty) or in folders called things like "C:\Deleted xxxx" etc, where the x:es are numbers.

    I did not even load any Restore point, just checked to see if there were any and that the creation of Restore Points was activated. Why would that ever make my Users folder be deleted? I don't get what happened. I am so clueless. Most of the things were already backed up fortunately but trying to recreate the Start-Menu and all items in the AppData folder, etc. will be a nightmare and hours of work...
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  3. getaman
    Posts : 19
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
    Thread Starter
       New #2

    Restoring user account


    Helloes.
    I have encountered a very annoying problem with Win 7 (Professional) user accounts.
    Last week the user account with all its files disappeared, I am not sure why, but it's gone. All that remains is a black desktop. The other folders were not affected, windows, program files, etc still there. But Startmenu shortcuts are gone, which is a mess.

    So I managed to restore some of the files (most were already backed up except for the Start-menu and so) with an undelete software.

    Last night I tried to move all those files back into position and recreate all folders. However it seems hard to get it exactly like it was and I tried making a new admin account to copy the exact structure from.

    But that failed too as when I logged out of the corrupted account and trying to log in on the new gave me an error message that

    "User Profile Service" cannot login and that he login procedure failed (message in Swedish, hard to translate correctly).

    According to Windows online help I should check the registry in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-xxxxxx

    For any duplicate keys but there is only one key there with the "long number".

    Feels like something has happened and I am not sure how to restore it. There are dozens of files in the "AppData" folder like possible savefiles that I am not sure which to backup. Well in case I need to delete the original account. Maybe I cannot login in at all after that? I don't want to make a system restore since I have all programs working fine in the other folders.

    Please help!
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