User profile corrupt

[Stephen Howe]

Hi,

My brother is currently running Windows 2000 on his laptop and his profile
has gone corrupt :-( and since I program for a living he has given it to me
to fix it. A number of points:

1. It was such that a log on box came up with userid "Administrator" and
blank Password. He just clicked on "Ok" and went straight in. So no
password.

Now W2K reports that it cannot load the profile and it is setting up a
temporary profile (which will disappear on shutting W2K down).

How do I create a new adminstrator profile?
Control Panel -> System -> User Profiles does not have "Create".
Is it enough to try and log in (not tried)?

2. I have found that W2K converted that User Profile to 1000's of CHK files.
Unfortunately his Documents and OutLook Express mailbox and address book was
under "Documents and Settings" (great design Microsoft - profile goes
corrupt and you can kiss goodbye to your data). I have no doubt some of
those CHK files are his documents OutLook Express mailbox and address book
so I will have the fun of identifying them (which I might get lucky). Any
pointers or tips for recovery welcome.

I shall certainly make sure, for the future, that I change his location for
these things so it is not under "Documents and Settings".

3. About W2K: For NT 4.0, in Control Panel there used to "Services" applet.
This has gone for W2K. Where is it now?

Thanks

Stephen Howe

 

[Dave Patrick]

Inline reply:

Hi,

My brother is currently running Windows 2000 on his laptop and his profile
has gone corrupt :-( and since I program for a living he has given it to me
to fix it. A number of points:

1. It was such that a log on box came up with userid "Administrator" and
blank Password. He just clicked on "Ok" and went straight in. So no
password.

Now W2K reports that it cannot load the profile and it is setting up a
temporary profile (which will disappear on shutting W2K down).

How do I create a new adminstrator profile?
Control Panel -> System -> User Profiles does not have "Create".
Is it enough to try and log in (not tried)?

* User Profile May Become Corrupted After You Perform a Clean Windows 2000
Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296834

2. I have found that W2K converted that User Profile to 1000's of CHK files.
Unfortunately his Documents and OutLook Express mailbox and address book was
under "Documents and Settings" (great design Microsoft - profile goes
corrupt and you can kiss goodbye to your data). I have no doubt some of
those CHK files are his documents OutLook Express mailbox and address book
so I will have the fun of identifying them (which I might get lucky). Any
pointers or tips for recovery welcome.

* Doubtful you'll get much from the files. What happened when you restarted
the pc was chkdsk ran and found broken chains/ lost clusters, then created
*.chk files of them so you can delete them and regain the otherwise lost
drive space. They're not really meant to be recoverable files, you can go
ahead and delete the files to regain the lost space. You can open them with
a text editor and attempt to copy the parts you need to another file.

You can set the message store to a directory of your choosing.

3. About W2K: For NT 4.0, in Control Panel there used to "Services" applet.
This has gone for W2K. Where is it now?

* Control Panel|Administrative Tools|Services

 

[Claire]

Hi,

I wonder if you have some idea since there's some
similarity on your problem and mine. I am using Windows
2000 on my laptop and for some reason, I don't know what
happened, when I was logging on to my administrator where
I 100% work on everything and from which all my files and
stuff are saved, it wouldn't log me on and it says it is
corrupted. It rerouted me to a temporary setting. I have
been trying to figure what I should do to be able to log
back on the my administrator setting. One of the options
is to reinstall Windows 2000 but I'm afraid of taking the
risk as I am not sure if I would be able to recover the
same setting and all the files.

I appreciate if you have some suggestions. Or anything. I
am getting so desperate already.

Thanks,
Claire

 

[Stephen Howe]

I appreciate if you have some suggestions. Or anything. I

am getting so desperate already.

Did you read Dave Patrick's response? He suggested
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;296834

I followed this exactly and now have a new administator profile. The old
corrupted one I subsequently deleted.

Stephen Howe