Tough one for ya. XP Home User Account Disappeared?

Question

Ok, I have 4 user accounts on XP Home Edition:

Account A: (Default Administrator)
Account B: (Administrator)
Account C: (limited)
Account D: (limited)

The problematic user account is "C" which is the account I use heavily. This is what I did:

- Got into Safe Mode with the default administrator account and took ownership of "Account C". I might have pushed a button of two in that same screen in the confusion.

- Rebooted and account C disappeared from both, the user accounts in control panel (when logged in with the default administrator account) as well as the option to login to the account upon boot. So account was invisible.

- Rebooted and got into safe mode and took ownership off of account c, allowing all administrators to see account C's folder (this is where account C's files are) and gave account C administrator's privileges.

So now I can see Account C login upon boot and also in the control panel. The problem is that Account C has a different desktop profile. I mean, it looks like a brand new account without my old data, my firefox bookmarks, or all the files I had on my desktop; everything is gone. I can access account C's data through C:\Documents and Settings\account c. but what I need is my old user account C back after I login to it..

How can I fix this experts? .

Answer 1

When did this happen?



Try System Restore and roll Back your computer to a previous date before you did this incident .



To go to system restore



Click Start- All programs- Accesories- System Restore

After that u would get a window then click on restore my computer to an eariler time then click on next

after that u would get a window asking to select a date u would like to restore ur computer too.

Select a date which is bold before u did this (presume u did this on november 19th select a date before this.) and click on next.



After that ur computer will be taken to the date you selected. then u can backup all ur files in account C and make c the admin and be happy.

good luck.if this dose not work pm me on

[e-mail]

Answer 2

create a new user, and move the files from Account C's Documents and Settings to the appropriate corresponding folders. if your bookmarks are still there, they will be in with these files, but your registry is likely screwed up somewhere.



the only other "easy" way to fix this is to reinstall Windows. the "hard" way to fix it would be to go through each section of the registry to find the problem, which in my opinion is not worth the time. it would take LESS time to just reset all the settings and rebookmark everything.



it might be a good idea to "clone" any accounts, once you get them working again, that way if it ever happens again, you can just copy the files over from the backup account using Admin account.

Answer 3

Try a system restore...

Answer 4

cry over your lost data, we have all been there, then move on and start again.