Before doing any of the following,
make a backup of your registry. I suggest you install
ERUNT to do this.
Your files are still there. Sounds like your user profile has lost it's connection with where it's data is stored. If you are comfortable with using regedit, try this by booting to Safe Mode by pressing F8 during boot. Login as Administrator, no password.
The key is a registry hack that redirects Windows back to the ProfileImagePath of the original profile.
Click on
Start then
Run. type
regedit and press
Enter or click
OK.
Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
Once there, you will see the
SID's listed for all of the profiles on the machine. Something like this:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-18
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-19
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-20
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-2734701773-3490380084-605924724-1001
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-2734701773-3490380084-605924724-1004
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-2734701773-3490380084-605924724-500
On my system, my profile is under the one that ends in 1001, yours may be different, check them all.
Within the Key for each SID there is an entry called
"ProfileImagePath" that will look like
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ C:\Users\UserName...
Scroll through the SID's until you find the one with the screwy name, like
%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\youruserid.2
This is just an example, could be something else weird.
Just edit the Key to remove the ".2" (or whatever is bogus), and it will point the user back to their old profile...
Got this from [url=http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=10&threadID=164922&messageID=1914470]TechRepublic.com[\url] but it's no longer there.
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