oh god someone help me - Computer Issue

Mai-Kero

So my computer just randomly restarted and now won't let me log in as myself. It's saying it's because of Lacking Security Rights or a Corrupt profile.

I have no idea what's wrong, and I have SO MUCH SHIT on that profile.

Any idea what's up?

It's Windows XP on a Dell Vostro 1500. I've had it like five months without problems. My internet went out right before the restart. I tried unplugging the cable modem and plugging it back in and I got a message saying some process was terminated and the computer would restart in 60 seconds.

VThornheart

Do you have an Administrator account set up in addition to that one?

With Admin rights, you'll be able to go into that account's "Documents and Settings" folder and remove anything valuable you had there.

This error could be a sign of worse corruption, however: so first things' first. Try to log in with your Administrator account.

Post to the board again letting us know how that went. If it worked, we can guide you through recovering your files from the unaccessible account.

If it doesn't work, we'll go from there.

Mai-Kero

Yeah, I can access all the files.

it's just the son of a bitch factor here that's making me terrified.

Something happening all of a sudden with no problems. I had everything set the way I wanted it.

What's weird is that it's showing me logged in as the account right now. None of my settings are loading up though. I can access my documents if I go through My Computer. What I really need, though, are my bookmarks/emails/windows settings/pidgin/ventrilo stuff.

I tried the "Copy/paste all of the files inside your folder into a new account" but that didn't work. It just gave me what I have now on the old account on the new one. Which is weird, because yeah, all my files are there if I go through C:

VThornheart

It shows you as logged in?

Tell you what... this isn't terribly likely, but just humor me here.

Turn off your computer COMPLETELY (don't just put it on sleep mode). Unplug your ethernet connection... or if you have wireless, turn off your wireless router.

Then turn the computer on. BEFORE plugging into the ethernet or turning on your wireless router again, try to log in as your normal user.

Once you've done that, plug back into the 'net and let us know if you were able to log in.

Mai-Kero

It doesn't show me logged in until I actually log in.

What happens is: I get the message that my profile cannot be accessed because I lack access rights or it is corrupted. Contact my network administrator. I am not on a network, and that is the admin account. Then it logs me into the account using a temp profile, so I have admin rights, and I can access the files, but the profile options aren't available. So it's a temp account in all but name.

Right now I'm backing up all the shit from the profile, but stuff like profile-specific programs and email and bookmarks I'm completely lost on.

VThornheart

Hmm... what kind of profile-specific programs? Were you using the DPAPI?

Short of something like the DPAPI (Data Protection API), I think you can go into C:\Documents And Settings\(Name of User)\ and pretty much grab any settings files you need from it. It's a pain in the butt to do that, but better than losing it entirely. =(

The Application Data, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings (Maybe), and My Documents folders should have all of the settings for the programs you use, including bookmarks (for FireFox I believe it's under "Application Data\Mozilla", for IE it's under "Favorites") and such.

I'm not sure about the E-Mail stuff sadly. Can you get into your E-Mail application and do a backup in that temp account?

Hopefully that helps. Maybe someone else will know what on earth went wrong. It sounds like your user login data got fubar-ed, but I'm at a loss as to how that can be fixed. =(

Track Nine

You may have already tried some of this, but I'm going to go through it anyway in case you haven't, or you did it wrong. If you've already tried once and think you may have done it wrong, create a new account again as directed.

Okay, so, can you get into safe mode?

If so, can you log into the admin account?

If you can then you need to create a new user account from the control panel. For clarity, we'll refer to your corrupted account as"DeadAcc", the new account as "NewAcc" and the admin account simply as "AdminAcc".

Now, while logged into AdminAcc find the profile directory for DeadAcc: Probably C:\Documents and settings\DeadAcc

Go into this folder, then go to: Tools -> Folder Options -> View tab -> select "show hidden files and folders" -> beneath that, untick "Hide protected Operating system files" -> select "Ok"

Now, Select all the files and folders inside the C:\Documents and settings\DeadAcc folder EXCEPT for these 3 files - Ntuser.dat, Ntuser.dat.log, Ntuser.ini

Copy the files and folders you have selected and paste them into the folder for the new profile (e.g. C:\Documents and settings\NewAcc).

Log off the computer, reboot into windows as normal and log into the new account. This should have cloned your old profile, with the exception of the e-mail (messages, address book etc). E-mail and such can be brought over to the new account once it is set up. For the time being, have a go at this and see if this helps on the profile side of things.

Nakatomi2010

Run a hard drive diagnostic, I've seen this issue caused primarily on machines with bad hard drives.....

vonPoonBurGer

When you login, Windows reads your user settings from a file called NTUSER.DAT. I'm guessing that's the file that Windows is seeing as corrupted. It's basically the file that contains all the information stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive. It's possible that your hard drive is going bad, so you should definitely backup all your important files to other location. However, it's also possible that your user registry got hosed because Windows was writing to it at the time of the system crash. You can blow up that profile and essentially start with a fresh user profile if you want; that shouldn't affect your installed apps, most of those store their registry keys in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, which is stored elsewhere. Here's what you do:

1) create a second account, and give it admin rights
2) logout of your old account
3) login under the new account
4) rename the NTUSER.DAT file of your old account to NTUSER.OLD, or whatever
5) reboot your machine and try logging in under the old account

Windows should log you in as if you were a new user, giving you the "setting up start menu" dialog, etc. It should also create a fresh, new and uncorrupted NTUSER.DAT file for you. If it flakes out for any reason, you can always login under the second account and put NTUSER.DAT back.