[drewmacd]

Well, my girlfriend was trying to find one of her papers or something (irrelevant) on her computer. She usually opens a file (i.e. in Microsoft Word), clicks the drop down menu, and goes to "(her name)'s Documents". Usually all her subfolders are in there (School, Volleyball, etc), except now her computer is routing her to My Documents. When you try and get back into it, it always directs you to My documents. We found the files in Recent Documents, and it says its in C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\My Documents\......

Search isn't really finding anything either.

Any ideas?

[Ztruker]

That's very strange. The files should be under

C:\Documents and Settings\heruserid\My Documents\......

Try copying them from C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\My Documents\...... to the above folder, see if they appear as expected then.

The real question is how/why did they get moved.

[drewmacd]

We went to both those directories and her folders don't show up, only the program files and system stuff the computer puts in.

I forgot this before, but her computer is a Dell Inspiron 1200 Windows XP Laptop, probably doesn't help much though.

[drewmacd]

She can open the files using Recent documents, and this has been going on for about a week she said.

[Ztruker]

Okay, try this.

Boot to Safe Mode and login as Administrator (no password).

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\heruserid\My Documents\......, see if the documents show up that way.

If yes she may have a corrupted account and will have to create a new one then copy all her data from the old to the new.

If you have a corrupted account (user profile) where things are all messed up when you login or you can't login then follow the directions here to create a new account and copy all your user data over to it:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

Or follow these directions posted in GeeksToGo.com:

1. Ensure you've added a new user account and that you've logged in using that account at least once - this will create the folder under Documents and Settings
2. Reboot the computer.
3. Login with the new account so the folder structure under Documents and Settings gets created, then log off.
4. Login with an account that is neither the old or the new account. This prevents "file in use" errors while copying. (NOTE: If you don't have another account, you can create a third one or you can boot into Safe Mode and log with the ADMINISTRATOR account.)
5. Browse to c:\documents and settings\OldUserAccount
6. Select everything in that folder except the three files called ntuser.dat, ntuser.dat.log, and ntuser.ini. (These may be hidden files, so if you don't see them, open My Computer, Tools menu, View tab, check "Show Hidden Files/Folders")
7. Copy all those files into c:\documents and settings\NewUserAccount
8. Reboot the computer and login with your New user account.

Once you confirm that all your documents are located in My Documents of the New user, you can delete the old profile (And the third account you created in Step #3 if it was needed).

[drewmacd]

When going into Safe Mode/Administrator, access is denied into C:\Documents and Settings\heruserid . When logging into her account, the files still don't show up where she put them.

[Ztruker]

Okay, when in Safe Mode as Administrator, you need to take ownership of her entry under Documents and Settings. See here: How to take ownership. This will give Administrator access to her data, it will not take her access away.