XP created new profile and loads from it

[brain_wired]

All,

I have a dual boot system with XP and Ubuntu linux peacefully
coexisting. today when i logged into my xp account i was shocked to
see my files missing from the desktop and my documents. i went to
documents and settings and found out that a new profile ' my account
name. computer name' was created and xp was loading settings from this
profile instead 'my account name' profile . All my files from my
account are intact but it doesnt load when it should. i cannot delete
this new profile either as its a windows file. also i have been
getting the blue screen of death. any ideas ??

 

[Guest]

It sounds like you have suffered disk corruption. This "sidestepping" of the
profile is an automatic response to a situation where the registry seciton of
the profile (NTUSER.DAT) cannot be opened.

Do you use hibernation in either OS? If so this can lead to data corruption
if you modify files within a hibernated OS's partition. This is because when
the memory 'snapshot' is reloaded, the contents of those files will no longer
match what the running programs expect them to be.

 

[brain_wired]

It sounds like you have suffered disk corruption. This "sidestepping" of the
profile is an automatic response to a situation where the registry seciton of
the profile (NTUSER.DAT) cannot be opened.

Do you use hibernation in either OS? If so this can lead to data corruption
if you modify files within a hibernated OS's partition. This is because when
the memory 'snapshot' is reloaded, the contents of those files will no longer
match what the running programs expect them to be.

thanks for your reply. i do not use hibernation in either OS. i rarely
use linux but a lot of files and applications went missing from my
linux OS about 4 months ago but i didnt think too much of it. can I
use system restore and set the problem right ? what else should i do

 

[Guest]

I doubt if this is a system-restore candidate. You could try though. If it
doesn't work then undo the restore.

Otherwise, what you need to do is:

Log on as Administrator (or an account other than your normal one)
Rename both the original and substitue profile folders to something else.
Remove and re-create your normal useraccount.
Log on as your original user. This should re-create the correct userprofile
folder.
Log back on as Admin, and transfer the contents of your profile to the
newly-created folder.

Note that depending on the level of damage you may or may not be able to use
the original NTUSER.DAT file. Things will be much easier if you can, as you
then won't have to re-create all of your settings. But at least you should
be able to put your files and shortcuts back.

While doing this, disable the Fast User Switching service, as it can lead to
accounts not being fully logged-off.

 

[brain_wired]

I doubt if this is a system-restore candidate. You could try though. If it
doesn't work then undo the restore.

Otherwise, what you need to do is:

Log on as Administrator (or an account other than your normal one)
Rename both the original and substitue profile folders to something else.
Remove and re-create your normal useraccount.
Log on as your original user. This should re-create the correct userprofile
folder.
Log back on as Admin, and transfer the contents of your profile to the
newly-created folder.

Note that depending on the level of damage you may or may not be able to use
the original NTUSER.DAT file. Things will be much easier if you can, as you
then won't have to re-create all of your settings. But at least you should
be able to put your files and shortcuts back.

While doing this, disable the Fast User Switching service, as it can lead to
accounts not being fully logged-off.

i coudnt use sys restore as it kept hanging before the operation. i
created a new admin account and tried to rename both the original and
the substitute accounts but access was denied. so i copied all my
files from the original account to an external hard drive and then
tried to delete the account. i chose the keep files option so that i
could save some time in copying files back from the external hard
drive. what it did was save files from the substitute account on the
new admin desktop. well i thought my original files were deleted but
the unused space still showed 1 GB as earlier. the earlier account
still shows up as a empty folder but i cannot even access it. im
wondering if somehow my original files are still in the hard drive and
i have no way of accessing them. Im even more perplexed now. what do i
do ?

 

[RalfG]

Try the procedures for taking ownership of files/folders outlined here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

[brain_wired]

Thanks Ralf it worked. I went to safe mode and changed permissions and
deleted the old account, the files were all there as i suspected. it
was showing a gibberish ownership. dunno what went wrong where but im
glad the pc is back to normal

 

[RalfG]

Glad it worked out.