Missing User Accounts and CDRW

[Monika]

Hello,

On Windows XP Home. I've two problems.

1)
Recently I discovered that there is a way to restrict users without
doing it to the extent the "Limited" account does in Control Panel.

Here's what I did:

Start > Run > "Control Userpasswords2"
In the "User Accounts" dialog:
clicked user name > "Properties" > "Group Membership" tab > "Standard
User" > OK

Here's what happened:

I received an error that the user could not be modified because the
group name was not found, so I clicked "Cancel" on everything and the
user vanished. When I tried to create the user again (from "Control
Userpasswords2" and the Control Panel) I received a message the user
already exists. I did not accidentaly delete the user.

The users are also gone from the Welcome Screen. The only place they
exist is in the Profiles dialog. The folders for the vanishing users
also remain.

How do I get those user accounts back?


2)
I just realized that my DVDRW is gone. Only yesterday I was burning
photos onto it, today it's nowhere to be found (on Windows, it's still
attached physicaly). It won't even open. I tried reinstalling drivers
but it didn't work. The drive is a Pioneer DVDRW-103.

How do I fix this?

Oh, and if this helps, the computer is a Sony VAIO PCV-RX580.


Thank you kindly for your assistance.

 

[Guest]

Hopefully you had system restore up and running

 

[Monika]

-----Original Message-----

Hopefully you had system restore up and running

Oh nuts! I forgot about that. System Restore was running but I didn't
make a restore point, and since then I've updated Windows and a number
of key applications and installed two more. Good news, the DVDRW is
back. But how do I get those darn user accounts back?

Sheesh, after all those years since XP came out, after all those
updates, one would think that M$ would finally fix all the bugs. How
many more unfixed bugs are there in XP anyway? And how long will it
take for a M$ product to work the way it's supposed to?

Anyway, if you know how to get those user accounts back please let me
know.

Thank you.

 

[Monika]

Hello,

On Windows XP Home. I've two problems.

1)
Recently I discovered that there is a way to restrict users without
doing it to the extent the "Limited" account does in Control Panel.

Here's what I did:

Start > Run > "Control Userpasswords2"
In the "User Accounts" dialog:
clicked user name > "Properties" > "Group Membership" tab > "Standard
User" > OK

Here's what happened:

I received an error that the user could not be modified because the
group name was not found, so I clicked "Cancel" on everything and the
user vanished. When I tried to create the user again (from "Control
Userpasswords2" and the Control Panel) I received a message the user
already exists. I did not accidentaly delete the user.

The users are also gone from the Welcome Screen. The only place they
exist is in the Profiles dialog. The folders for the vanishing users
also remain.

How do I get those user accounts back?


2)
I just realized that my DVDRW is gone. Only yesterday I was burning
photos onto it, today it's nowhere to be found (on Windows, it's still
attached physicaly). It won't even open. I tried reinstalling drivers
but it didn't work. The drive is a Pioneer DVDRW-103.

How do I fix this?

Oh, and if this helps, the computer is a Sony VAIO PCV-RX580.


Thank you kindly for your assistance.

I solved a piece of the puzzle. The accounts have become disabled. The
dialog I used is an old NT dialog and is available standard in XP Pro,
where it's easy to enable an account disabled this way by opening the
Computer Management console and under the "Local Users and Groups" node
double clicking the account(s) in question and clearing the "Account is
Disabled" checkbox.

So, the question now becomes how do I enable the missing account in XP
Home where the "Local Users and Groups" node in not available in
Computer Management.

Thank you.