Corrupt Administrator profile

[Colin Foster]

Hello Group
Using WinXP Pro on son's PC. Last week, started receiving an error message
stating that the profile couldn't be loaded because it might be corrupted.
The problem is that we don't set up seperate user profiles, we just use the
Administrator one. This means that its the Administrator which is "dead".
Any ideas on how to retrieve this? I've checked out the kb article 318011,
but this seems only to deal with a non-administrator profile. In addition,
we can't "see" any of the files in the "My Documents" folder, even when we
are looking at all users.
Also, to try to protect my main pc doing this, I've set up a new profile,
but now that loads instead of my Administrator one. Is there any way of
either copying the administrator profile to a new profile so that the icons
& programs available are identical and/or changing the default logon user?
Cheers
Colin Foster

 

[Colin Foster]

Hi,
Thanks for that.
Yes, I tried a restore, but it didn't restore anything!
How will going into safe mode help?
Regards
Colin

 

[rifleman]

Hi,
Thanks for that.
Yes, I tried a restore, but it didn't restore anything!
How will going into safe mode help?
Regards
Colin

You might have to do a repair install of your Windows.

BTW, as you have found out, it is NOT a good thing to use the
Administrator account as your daily log-in. (The Administrator log-in is
hidden by default - what on earth made you do this?) When you have fixed
this, set up User accounts (you can give them Administrator privileges)
to use on a daily basis.That is how XP is designed to be used.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Using WinXP Pro on son's PC. Last week, started receiving an error message
stating that the profile couldn't be loaded because it might be corrupted.
The problem is that we don't set up seperate user profiles, we just use the
Administrator one. This means that its the Administrator which is "dead".
Any ideas on how to retrieve this? I've checked out the kb article 318011,
but this seems only to deal with a non-administrator profile. In addition,
we can't "see" any of the files in the "My Documents" folder, even when we
are looking at all users.

I hope you have been using a profile that has a username with
Administrator status, not the reserve one *called* Administrator, which
should be kept strictly for use in emergencies like this. Boot, hitting
F8 as the BIOS information goes to a black screen, before the Windows
logo, take Safe Mode, and on the Welcome should be an icon for
'Administrator'. The password is probably a blank one. Take that and
then follow the KB article. Best approach is to make a new account and
copy files into it.