"Corrupt Profile" error in Windows XP

[Scott McCarthy]

Hi,

XP has been running like a dream for me for ages. In fact, yesterday
was it's 45th day of continuous running without a reboot!

However, after lulling me into a false sense of security, I had a blue
screen of death yesterday, and after rebooting, when I log on, I now get
a small message box telling me "your user profile is corrupt, you may
have to use the default profile" (Or words to that effect, I can't
remember the exact wording at the moment).

However, after that, my user logs on, and everything would appear to be
working. (ie - All my desktop icons are there, all the stuff in my
profile folder, etc).

My PC has about 5 users on it, for each member of my household. It
would appear that EVERYONE's user now receives this error. What is
worse, is that other peoples profiles are indeed corrupt, and the system
gives them a default profile that they can't save anything into.

So, I essentially have three questions...

1. What could have caused this?
2. Is there a way to recover the profiles, or do I have to create new
ones?
3. Why does my profile get the error, then appear to work fine?

I'd obviously prefer to recover and not create new, as it would be a lot
of hassle to create new profiles for everyone, and ensure that none of
their files in "my documents" and other places are lost.

All suggestions gratefully received.

Kind Regards

Scott

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Scott;
Follow this to copy data from corrupt profiles to new profiles:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318011

That answers question to #2
1. Whatever caused the blue screen, see Event Viewer for
possibilities:
Start/Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance/Administrative Tools,
and then double-click Event Viewer.
#3. No idea.

 

[GrahamU]

I also had this error just yesterday - I used Last Known Good at boot
and everytihing seems OK now.
(XP Pro SP1)
GrahamU

 

[atkin]

Try restart and on load up Dos screen press F8 or it maybe another key for the choices menu on your PC. Look for ''last known good configuration'' and load.

This worked for me without a system restore point.