Corrupt Administrator Profile

[C. Bailey]

I reformatted my hard drive this summer, and did a fresh install of W2K.
Since then, about every month or month and a half, I get a corrupt
adminstrator profile. I was running W2K prior to the reinstall with no such
problem for a couple years.

Any thoughts on why I would be having these problems now? My main reason
for writing is to determine if there is some way I can create an exact
duplicate of my administrator account? Every time I lose my administrator
account, I delete it, and spend several hours reconfiguring everything to
get back to the point I was before the failure. Outlook and IE are the
worst, because I have to hack the registry to specify address book location,
favorites, change store directories, temporary file locations, set up the
dial up connections, the accounts, etc. It's a real pain in the butt
because Microsoft stores so much info in the registry.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Thank you,
Chris

 

[Mark V]

C. Bailey wrote in

I reformatted my hard drive this summer, and did a fresh install
of W2K. Since then, about every month or month and a half, I get a
corrupt adminstrator profile. I was running W2K prior to the
reinstall with no such problem for a couple years.

Any thoughts on why I would be having these problems now? My main
reason for writing is to determine if there is some way I can
create an exact duplicate of my administrator account? Every time
I lose my administrator account, I delete it, and spend several
hours reconfiguring everything to get back to the point I was
before the failure. Outlook and IE are the worst, because I have
to hack the registry to specify address book location, favorites,
change store directories, temporary file locations, set up the
dial up connections, the accounts, etc. It's a real pain in the
butt because Microsoft stores so much info in the registry.

Why don't you backup your profile with ntbackup.exe periodically (or
all the profiles)? Especially after making software install/un-
install (after confirming things are "good").

The account's profile is comprised of the two registry hive files
("Current User") and a slew of disk files and directories. The
backup above will get it all (if administrator) but check the log to
be sure. You can also logon with another Admin account to back
it/them up.

Preventing corruption = unknown. Depends on software installed and
shutdown procedures. May be a disk error. May be delayed writes...

 

[Mark V]

C. Bailey wrote in

I reformatted my hard drive this summer, and did a fresh install
of W2K. Since then, about every month or month and a half, I get a
corrupt adminstrator profile. I was running W2K prior to the
reinstall with no such problem for a couple years.

Any thoughts on why I would be having these problems now? My main
reason for writing is to determine if there is some way I can
create an exact duplicate of my administrator account? Every time
I lose my administrator account, I delete it, and spend several
hours reconfiguring everything to get back to the point I was
before the failure. Outlook and IE are the worst, because I have
to hack the registry to specify address book location, favorites,
change store directories, temporary file locations, set up the
dial up connections, the accounts, etc. It's a real pain in the
butt because Microsoft stores so much info in the registry.

Why don't you backup your profile with ntbackup.exe periodically (or
all the profiles)? Especially after making software install/un-
install (after confirming things are "good").

The account's profile is comprised of the two registry hive files
("Current User") and a slew of disk files and directories. The
backup above will get it all (if administrator) but check the log to
be sure. You can also logon with another Admin account to back
it/them up.

Preventing corruption = unknown. Depends on software installed and
shutdown procedures. May be a disk error. May be delayed writes...

 

[C. Bailey]

Thank you,

I've never used ntbackup - I didn't even know it was there until this post.
If I back up Documents and Settings folder while logged in as the
administrator, would this allow me to restore everything in the event of
another corrupt profile, or are there other files and directories that I
also need to be concerned about.

Is there any way to diagnose why I am getting corrupt profiles? I did a
scan disk from a win98 boot disk this last failure, and there were no
errors.

Chris

 

[C. Bailey]

Thank you,

I've never used ntbackup - I didn't even know it was there until this post.
If I back up Documents and Settings folder while logged in as the
administrator, would this allow me to restore everything in the event of
another corrupt profile, or are there other files and directories that I
also need to be concerned about.

Is there any way to diagnose why I am getting corrupt profiles? I did a
scan disk from a win98 boot disk this last failure, and there were no
errors.

Chris

 

[Mark V]

C. Bailey wrote in

Thank you,

I've never used ntbackup - I didn't even know it was there until
this post. If I back up Documents and Settings folder while logged
in as the administrator, would this allow me to restore everything
in the event of another corrupt profile, or are there other files
and directories that I also need to be concerned about.

Is there any way to diagnose why I am getting corrupt profiles? I
did a scan disk from a win98 boot disk this last failure, and
there were no errors.

Chris

Perhaps one or more of article returned from Google search
corrupt +profile +windows
and articles at MS may help you determine what the source of the
problem is. You may also want to read Windows Help on backing up
data. And of course checking the Event Logs for error details is
usually a good idea.

 

[Mark V]

C. Bailey wrote in

Thank you,

I've never used ntbackup - I didn't even know it was there until
this post. If I back up Documents and Settings folder while logged
in as the administrator, would this allow me to restore everything
in the event of another corrupt profile, or are there other files
and directories that I also need to be concerned about.

Is there any way to diagnose why I am getting corrupt profiles? I
did a scan disk from a win98 boot disk this last failure, and
there were no errors.

Chris

Perhaps one or more of article returned from Google search
corrupt +profile +windows
and articles at MS may help you determine what the source of the
problem is. You may also want to read Windows Help on backing up
data. And of course checking the Event Logs for error details is
usually a good idea.