Need help with Windows Vista User Profile Issue

izafar

I am trying to recover from a PC crash. I am running Windows Vista Premium on Dell XPX 400 PC.

I believe my Hard disk crashed as a result of power failure during bad weather a couple of weeks ago. I found my PC in constant reboot cycle. It got stuck at loading CRCDISK.SYS and then would automatically reboot.

So far I have tried the following:

1. Tried system repair by booting with Vista install CD ==> Same Issue

2. Booted with Vista Install CD and then exited to command prompt. Ran CHKDSK. It reported some bad sectors. Ran CHKDSK /R and it reported it fixed 7 bad sectors. 6 of them were in Firefox cache folder, one of them were in registry backup folder. I rebooted the PC after the completion of CHKDISK ==> Same issue

3. Tried the option of booting with last known good config. This time it worked, but after logging into my account it gave me the message "User Profile not loaded successfully". It gave me a temp profile. Subsequent reboots result in same situation.

Now my old user profile is gone with all the data and app settings. The data is present on HDD, as disk free space is same as before, but I am not able to find it using explorer.

I have googled for this issue and found solutions that will get rid of this temp profile issue, but that involves deleting it and creating a new one, I am more interested in get my old one restored. I need to now if anyone has faced similar issue? and was able to resolve it?

AsSiMiLaTeD

If the issue is getting all your setting abd such back then I can't really help much, my general experience with Windows is that when it's hosed you just have to reinstall from scratch.

If the issue is just retrieving your data, you could always boot from an ubuntu disk, which should allow you to see your windows directories and copy data from those into a new directory on the root of the drive, which you should then be able to see in Windows.

izafar

AsSiMiLaTeD:
So you are saying that uBuntu will show folders that Vista doesn't show currently?


I am not concerned about data that much ( I had MS onecare backup, and I hope I will get my data, I havent restored it yet to confirm this...).

I have ordered a new HDD. My goal is to clone this HDD to new one so that I don't have to install and configure every thing (I might not have all installation disks handy for everything that is on current PC).

SKsolutions

Does the temp profile have admin rights? The Ubuntu disk is worth a shot too.

petrym

izafar, you can boot with any Linux Live CD distro: Ubuntu, Knoppix, Slax, etc. and view everything on the Vista HD. Copy off the data to a CD or USB drive, wipe the drive, and rebuild from scratch. I would avoid a bit-wise clone of your drive (since you are having problems with profiles). Before rebuild: open the case and look closely at all components, especially the motherboard, for any evidence of electrical surge such as fried spatters and popped or slightly bulged capacitors.

Systems

Can you reload Vista over the top of your initial install? You could do this with XP and it would rewrite any bad data or corrupted files and all your initial data would still be there....

izafar

I am able to find my data with Ubuntu. There is a found.000 folder on root of HDD that seems to be my missing user profile folder. The HDD has gone bad for sure as I am getting errors while trying to copy data to an external disk.

ryanjoachim

Yeah, it's a dying HD. When you go to "Users" on the C:/ drive, do you see any entries besides the temp one?

If so, I would recommend digging in there and copying what you NEED out of there and pasting it into a new one (create a new one, not the temp one).