The user profile service failed the logon....

[nkaufman]

Hello,

Needed to send my laptop for repair. So took out my HDD and used it in an external enclosure, just working on data.

After getting my laptop, I put the old HDD in and now my User Profile is all messed up. I have 2 users - both Admin - and cannot log on. Keep getting
"The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded"

I started in safe mode. This time my Regular Admin password worked fine, was able to log in and see desktop, files etc.

Went to registry and see only 2 entries - No entry with ".bak".
Saw RefCount was "1" for both and changed both to "0".
Reboot normal but no luck.

Booted in safe mode and ran SFC /SCANNOW but it found no errors.

Now in safe mode, I went to Users Folder (which is in a different partition), right click on ONE profile folder, went to properties and under Security Tab see

System
Administrators
Account Unknown with a SID that does NOT match the SID in registry for this User Profile.

Should I just add my User Profile to Security tab for this User Folder and give Full Control?

Thanks,

 

[mitchell65]

What repair did you have done?

 

[Brink]

Hello Kaufman,

For now, you might see if the method in the tutorial below may be able to help.

:ar: User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded. - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[nkaufman]

Hello Kaufman,

For now, you might see if the method in the tutorial below may be able to help.

:ar: User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded. - Windows 7 Help Forums

Thanks, I did look at that and also MS article:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/947215/you-receive-a-the-user-profile-service-failed-the-logon-error-message

before posting.

Afraid, paths under Option-1 to Fix the issue does NOT pertain to me.

Before going forward with Option-2, I wanted to try and see if my existing profile can be salvaged in any manner.

 

[nkaufman]

What repair did you have done?

None yet, waiting to see what an optimum fix would be - Fix current profile or create new profile

 

[Brink]

It may be best to create a new profile, and copy over any files you wanted from the old one.

 

[nkaufman]

It may be best to create a new profile, and copy over any files you wanted from the old one.

Twist for me is that
(1) I can log on to Safe Mode with User01/Pwd (Admin).
(2) Under my D:\Users\User01, Properties -> Security, I see
"Account Unknown(SID)"
which is different from my SID for this User01 in registry.

Hence, was wondering what could be the effect if I add "User01" with Full Control to D:\Users\User01, remove "Account Unknown" and then see.

Could that work? Is there something that could go wrong?

I have a Reflect Rescue media as well, wondering if that could help

 

[Brink]

"Account Unknown" is for an account that is currently not available. Usually, this is for a user from another computer. This most likely was from what you stated below for the account you worked on it from.

"So took out my HDD and used it in an external enclosure, just working on data."

You could try taking ownership of the folder to see if that may help.

 

[nkaufman]

"Account Unknown" is for an account that is currently not available. Usually, this is for a user from another computer. This most likely was from what you stated below for the account you worked on it from.

"So took out my HDD and used it in an external enclosure, just working on data."

Yes, that is what I thought could be the reason and hence mentioned in OP

You could try taking ownership of the folder to see if that may help.

Would like to know if Reflect Rescue Media can help in any way in restoring the user profile properly?

I did take ownership of folder, removed "Account Unknown" from Security/Permissions completely and now able to log in using User01. However, it does not seem to be working. Seems like a brand new but MESSED up profile. Cannot even create a folder on desktop, cannot save any settings etc. Can see my desktop with all files but all Outlook profiles, Favorites etc are gone.

So, before creating a new Profile route, if Reflect Rescue Media can help then can look at that first. If not, then creating a new Profile is what I'll do.

Thanks

 

[Brink]

If you have a image backup created by Macrium Reflect before all of this, you could restore it, but I suspect that you may just be back to square one.

 

[nkaufman]

Afraid not an image backup but rescue media.

Just created another Admin user and see in Control Panel - Users but do not see an entry in registry yet. perhaps a restart is needed.

Cannot delete User01 profile till I can get a new profile working properly.

 

[Brink]

The new account's profile should be created the first time to you log in to it.

 

[nkaufman]

The new account's profile should be created the first time to you log in to it.

Issue seems to be a bit more severe.

I created Admin user - User02. Didn't see anything in registry - ProfileList. So logged off and tried to logon as user02. Got "User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded" error.

Restarted machine and tried to log on as User02, still same error.

Logged in as User01, deleted User02 account and reboot
Went in safe mode User01, created user02, logged off, tried to log in Safe mode as User02, Success.
Reboot to Normal mode and am able to log in.

However, as soon as I click on D:\Users (partitioned user data to D:\) I get Access Denied Error. Opened folder properties and added User02, got some "access is denied" errors that tell me that user profiles are still messed up badly.

Thanks

 

[Megahertz07]

What did you do to move C:\Users to D:\Users?

 

[nkaufman]

What did you do to move C:\Users to D:\Users?

that was done while doing the initial win-7 install (Kari tutorial) a few years back

 

[Brink]

Is the new account on "C" or "D"?

 

[Megahertz07]

I also did using Kari tutorial.
Lets begin with the basic
- Boot from the Win 7 installation disk, go to repair and launch a CMD window. Type:
chkdsk c: /f
See if it finds any bad clusters or bad blocks.

- Type:
sfc /scannow

 

[Megahertz07]

Blink, I've seen cases that sysprep didn't change the default user folder.

Scan the register (F3) and look for C:/Users. Should be any.

Go to this address on Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

 

[nkaufman]

Is the new account on "C" or "D"?

The new account (that I was able to create in Safe Mode) had been created on D:\ as it should be since I have D:\Users folder set up.

 

[nkaufman]

Blink, I've seen cases that sysprep didn't change the default user folder.

Scan the register (F3) and look for C:/Users. Should be any.

Go to this address on Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

To clarify, I've not had any issues before this. My Users Folder was on D:\ and everything had been running fine till I had to take out the HDD and used it on another machine (attaching in an external HDD closure).

So sysprep had worked fine, no issues etc. on that account