Lost configuration information

[Guest]

When I shut down the system last night, everything was working fine.

I started my Windows XP system this morning. Large amounts of configuration
information seem to have disappeared from the restricted account that I
normally use. Administrator and two other accounts seem to be OK.

The first problem that I saw was that the QuickLaunch was empty. In the
right-click window I tried unchecking and rechecking "QuickLaunch". The
response was "cannot create tool bar". Help and Support gave me one document
that might be useful but it involves a registry change and seems to affect
all accounts. I do not want to do that.

The, I tried to open FireFox. It behaved as a brand new installation. It
opened the import wizard and then the welcome to firefox page. It cannot find
the bookmarks although its bookmarks.htm file is intact and other files in
its profiles directory appear to be OK.

Internet Explorer lost the startup page url but otherwise seems OK.

Eudora has lost its configuration information and may have lost the record
that it has been paid for.

I don't know yet if there are any other problems.

My personal data files seem to be intact.

Can anyone help?

 

[Cymbal Man Freq.]

It's the 3rd of the month. Was your anti-virus up to date with scans done?
People are at risk for losing Word & Excel documents on the 3rd of every month
starting this past February.

 

[Guest]

The last scan was done Saturday at 12:01AM. It was clean. Antivirus is
enabled for scanning email. The firewall is up and running. Of course, I will
do a new scan right now.

One thing makes me leery of assuming a virus: Only one XP account was
affected. Could the problem really be some system problem that is just
surfacing?

Can anyone give me advice about recovery? (If necessary, I can do a full
restore of documents and settings and system state but I am hoping for more
specific advice).

 

[Guest]

I did a new antivirus scan this morning and as usual, it found nothing wrong.
The problems I am having don't seem typical of viruses. I am hoping to get
some other suggestions here.

 

[Rock]

When I shut down the system last night, everything was working fine.

I started my Windows XP system this morning. Large amounts of configuration
information seem to have disappeared from the restricted account that I
normally use. Administrator and two other accounts seem to be OK.

The first problem that I saw was that the QuickLaunch was empty. In the
right-click window I tried unchecking and rechecking "QuickLaunch". The
response was "cannot create tool bar". Help and Support gave me one document
that might be useful but it involves a registry change and seems to affect
all accounts. I do not want to do that.

The, I tried to open FireFox. It behaved as a brand new installation. It
opened the import wizard and then the welcome to firefox page. It cannot find
the bookmarks although its bookmarks.htm file is intact and other files in
its profiles directory appear to be OK.

Internet Explorer lost the startup page url but otherwise seems OK.

Eudora has lost its configuration information and may have lost the record
that it has been paid for.

I don't know yet if there are any other problems.

My personal data files seem to be intact.

Can anyone help?

Try a system restore to a date right before this. To access system
restore go to Start | Help and Support and click on System Restore on
the menu bar or go to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools
| System Restore.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Rock. I had long ago given up on system restore because it hasn't
worked for me in a year and a half. Every time I try to do a restore, it goes
through the motions and then after it restarts it says "Your computer cannot
be restored...". I tried it again after seeing your post but it did the same
thing. I tried two different restore points. In each case "your computer
cannot be restored". I started a thread on this in November 2004. The thread
is still active. If you have any new thoughts on this, please post them to
that thread.

Meanwhile, I am hoping for some new information here that will avoid the
need to spend the day doing restores of recent backups of system state and
documents and settings.

 

[Rock]

Thanks, Rock. I had long ago given up on system restore because it hasn't
worked for me in a year and a half. Every time I try to do a restore, it goes
through the motions and then after it restarts it says "Your computer cannot
be restored...". I tried it again after seeing your post but it did the same
thing. I tried two different restore points. In each case "your computer
cannot be restored". I started a thread on this in November 2004. The thread
is still active. If you have any new thoughts on this, please post them to
that thread.

Meanwhile, I am hoping for some new information here that will avoid the
need to spend the day doing restores of recent backups of system state and
documents and settings.

For the system restore issue see this link for troubleshooting it.
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

Sorry I can't help with the underlying problem.