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XP Home - Profile repair?

Started by 53driver , Dec 11 2005 08:49 PM

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#1
53driver
Posted 11 December 2005 - 08:49 PM

53driver

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Good day, couldn't find this in the archives.

Situation: XP Home OS on a Dell Dimension - not mine, an employee's. Multiple profiles on startup (one per family member). Primary account (w/admin rights) does not log in anymore. After clicking on the profile name and about a 1 minute wait, one window comes up and says that Windows security won't allow this profile. Then, scrolling down, the window says a registry error maybe preventing access. Then the second window pops up saying a Temp Profile will be made, but no changes will be saved.

Desired endstate: All the pictures of their one year old son get recovered. They were stored under the primary profile. The other Admin profile does not have permission to access the folder.

Question: Is there a way to repair the damaged profile? If not, what is the best way to recover the "inaccessible" pictures?

Thanks in advance for any help.

cheers,
the 53driver
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#2
wannabe1
Posted 11 December 2005 - 09:13 PM

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Hi 53driver...

Try this Microsoft Procedure to create a new User Account and recover the files from the corrupt account. :tazz:

wannabe1
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#3
53driver
Posted 11 December 2005 - 09:37 PM

53driver

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Wannabe1,
Thanks for the link. After reviewing the MS page:

1. Log on as a user other than the user whose profile you are copying files to or from.
2. In Windows Explorer, click Tools, click Folder Options, click the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders, click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click OK.
3. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\Old_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and Old_Username is the name of the profile you want to copy user data from.
4. Press and hold down the CTRL key while you click each file and subfolder in this folder, except the following files:
• Ntuser.dat
• Ntuser.dat.log
• Ntuser.ini
5. On the Edit menu, click Copy.
6. Locate the C:\Documents and Settings\New_Username folder, where C is the drive on which Windows XP is installed, and New_Username is the name of the user profile that you created in the "Create a New User Profile" section.
7. On the Edit menu, click Paste.
8. Log off the computer, and then log on as the new user.


Step 3 will be an issue I think.... When I was logged in under a different account, I found the corrupt profile folder, but I couldn't get into it - Windows said I didn't have permission to access. If I just clicked on the entire profile folder, to copy it, do you think that would work? I don't see how I could copy the whole old subdir to the new profile.
Thoughts?

One idea I had was to take the hard drive out of the machine, make it a secondary drive in a Win98 machine and hopefully get into the restricted profile subdir that way and rescue the photos. Again, your thoughts?

It is late and Green Bay is losing so I am off to bed. I'll check back Monday night. Again, thanks for the help.

cheers,
The 53driver
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#4
wannabe1
Posted 11 December 2005 - 09:41 PM

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Do the procedure in Safe Mode while logged in as Administrator...that should get you past the permissions issue.

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#5
53driver
Posted 13 December 2005 - 06:55 PM

53driver

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...got it! Thanks.

Used Norton Commander in Safe Mode. No worries.

The 53driver
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