XP can't load personal settings, logs in as temp, fix eats all my

[Laria]

I'm running XP Media Center Ed. circa 2002 on an HP Pavillion, if that
matters. I'm afraid I can only describe my problems symptomatically, as I
don't have any technical knowledge on software.

My computer was fine, but a few days ago I booted it up only to have it
"loading personal settings" for a long time. It eventually logged me in, but
I found that my desktop picture (and all other personal settings) were gone
and my desktop was cluttered with, not my files, but Vongo, AOL free trial,
and a slew of other icons, possibly the same ones the computer started with,
but I'm not sure. What's weirder is that clicking "My Documents" only had My
Pictures, Videos, and Music in it, but they were empty except for the
samples. I checked my hard drive usage and all of my docs were still in
there, I eventually was able to access them by following the trail of icons
from My Computer. Other problems I encountered were that each time I
rebooted, Firefox would behave like I had never run it before and my Cookies
would be gone, but anything I downloaded to the Desktop would stay there. A
few times while logging in I got an error messages saying that I would be
logged in as a Temp user, but it appeared to log me in under my own username
anyway. Needless to say, I backed up all of my documents before doing
anything else. I tried a System Restore and was promptly told that nothing
had changed to restore.

My stepfather is a lot more computer-savvy than I am, and he tried to fix
it. He followed this advice:
http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-hangs-in-loading-your-personal-/148106.html
and I confess I have very little idea of what all that does. It helped
though; I can log in normally, retain Appearance settings, and keep cookies
from start to start. We also rearranged my files with cut and paste so My
Documents would actually have my documents in it, and went through /misconfig
to clean up my start-up. And boy, am I glad I backed everything up. Upon
restart my hard drive was twenty gigs lighter and My Documents is stark and
empty again.

I'm using said computer right now, and other than some brief hang-ups it
works. No scanner program or comparing it to my sister's identical, fully
functional computer shows anything wrong with it. Unfortunately it's also
eating my documents.

One help thread I looked in suggested reinstalling Windows completely and
wiping my hard drive clean. Really, I would love to. Unfortunately I've moved
a bunch recently and can't find my WXP CD for this computer, and from what
I've read Dell ones won't do the same thing. Is there anything else I can do
to sterilize and reset this machine without screwing it up?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm running XP Media Center Ed. circa 2002 on an HP Pavillion, if that
matters. I'm afraid I can only describe my problems symptomatically, as I
don't have any technical knowledge on software.

My computer was fine, but a few days ago I booted it up only to have it
"loading personal settings" for a long time. It eventually logged me in,
but
I found that my desktop picture (and all other personal settings) were
gone
and my desktop was cluttered with, not my files, but Vongo, AOL free
trial,
and a slew of other icons, possibly the same ones the computer started
with,
but I'm not sure. What's weirder is that clicking "My Documents" only had
My
Pictures, Videos, and Music in it, but they were empty except for the
samples. I checked my hard drive usage and all of my docs were still in
there, I eventually was able to access them by following the trail of
icons
from My Computer. Other problems I encountered were that each time I
rebooted, Firefox would behave like I had never run it before and my
Cookies
would be gone, but anything I downloaded to the Desktop would stay there.
A
few times while logging in I got an error messages saying that I would be
logged in as a Temp user, but it appeared to log me in under my own
username
anyway. Needless to say, I backed up all of my documents before doing
anything else. I tried a System Restore and was promptly told that nothing
had changed to restore.

My stepfather is a lot more computer-savvy than I am, and he tried to fix
it. He followed this advice:
http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-hangs-in-loading-your-personal-/148106.html
and I confess I have very little idea of what all that does. It helped
though; I can log in normally, retain Appearance settings, and keep
cookies
from start to start. We also rearranged my files with cut and paste so My
Documents would actually have my documents in it, and went through
/misconfig
to clean up my start-up. And boy, am I glad I backed everything up. Upon
restart my hard drive was twenty gigs lighter and My Documents is stark
and
empty again.

I'm using said computer right now, and other than some brief hang-ups it
works. No scanner program or comparing it to my sister's identical, fully
functional computer shows anything wrong with it. Unfortunately it's also
eating my documents.

One help thread I looked in suggested reinstalling Windows completely and
wiping my hard drive clean. Really, I would love to. Unfortunately I've
moved
a bunch recently and can't find my WXP CD for this computer, and from what
I've read Dell ones won't do the same thing. Is there anything else I can
do
to sterilize and reset this machine without screwing it up?

Your observation that Windows looks more or less the way it did
when the PC was new tells much of the story. Windows keeps a
profile folder for each user. In this folder there are the various
settings such as the ones for EMail, IE6 etc. but also your personal
documents. It appears that Windows was unable to load your
profile, hence no settings and no documents.

Your stepfather should check the permission structure for your
normal profile folder. It might be c:\documents and settings\laria.
He should also check the event viewer for error messages.