XP can't load personal settings, logs in as temp, fix eats all my

[Guest Laria]

I'm running XP Media Center Ed. circa 2002 on an HP Pavillion, if that

matters. I'm afraid I can only describe my problems symptomatically, as I

don't have any technical knowledge on software.

 

My computer was fine, but a few days ago I booted it up only to have it

"loading personal settings" for a long time. It eventually logged me in, but

I found that my desktop picture (and all other personal settings) were gone

and my desktop was cluttered with, not my files, but Vongo, AOL free trial,

and a slew of other icons, possibly the same ones the computer started with,

but I'm not sure. What's weirder is that clicking "My Documents" only had My

Pictures, Videos, and Music in it, but they were empty except for the

samples. I checked my hard drive usage and all of my docs were still in

there, I eventually was able to access them by following the trail of icons

from My Computer. Other problems I encountered were that each time I

rebooted, Firefox would behave like I had never run it before and my Cookies

would be gone, but anything I downloaded to the Desktop would stay there. A

few times while logging in I got an error messages saying that I would be

logged in as a Temp user, but it appeared to log me in under my own username

anyway. Needless to say, I backed up all of my documents before doing

anything else. I tried a System Restore and was promptly told that nothing

had changed to restore.

 

My stepfather is a lot more computer-savvy than I am, and he tried to fix

it. He followed this advice:

http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-hangs-in-loading-your-personal-/148106.html

and I confess I have very little idea of what all that does. It helped

though; I can log in normally, retain Appearance settings, and keep cookies

from start to start. We also rearranged my files with cut and paste so My

Documents would actually have my documents in it, and went through /misconfig

to clean up my start-up. And boy, am I glad I backed everything up. Upon

restart my hard drive was twenty gigs lighter and My Documents is stark and

empty again.

 

I'm using said computer right now, and other than some brief hang-ups it

works. No scanner program or comparing it to my sister's identical, fully

functional computer shows anything wrong with it. Unfortunately it's also

eating my documents.

 

One help thread I looked in suggested reinstalling Windows completely and

wiping my hard drive clean. Really, I would love to. Unfortunately I've moved

a bunch recently and can't find my WXP CD for this computer, and from what

I've read Dell ones won't do the same thing. Is there anything else I can do

to sterilize and reset this machine without screwing it up?

[Guest Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Re: XP can't load personal settings, logs in as temp, fix eats all my

 

 

"Laria" <Laria@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:1DA7161F-35CD-49BA-9E99-E52CCE488D4A@microsoft.com...

> I'm running XP Media Center Ed. circa 2002 on an HP Pavillion, if that

> matters. I'm afraid I can only describe my problems symptomatically, as I

> don't have any technical knowledge on software.

>

> My computer was fine, but a few days ago I booted it up only to have it

> "loading personal settings" for a long time. It eventually logged me in,

> but

> I found that my desktop picture (and all other personal settings) were

> gone

> and my desktop was cluttered with, not my files, but Vongo, AOL free

> trial,

> and a slew of other icons, possibly the same ones the computer started

> with,

> but I'm not sure. What's weirder is that clicking "My Documents" only had

> My

> Pictures, Videos, and Music in it, but they were empty except for the

> samples. I checked my hard drive usage and all of my docs were still in

> there, I eventually was able to access them by following the trail of

> icons

> from My Computer. Other problems I encountered were that each time I

> rebooted, Firefox would behave like I had never run it before and my

> Cookies

> would be gone, but anything I downloaded to the Desktop would stay there.

> A

> few times while logging in I got an error messages saying that I would be

> logged in as a Temp user, but it appeared to log me in under my own

> username

> anyway. Needless to say, I backed up all of my documents before doing

> anything else. I tried a System Restore and was promptly told that nothing

> had changed to restore.

>

> My stepfather is a lot more computer-savvy than I am, and he tried to fix

> it. He followed this advice:

> http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/xp-hangs-in-loading-your-personal-/148106.html

> and I confess I have very little idea of what all that does. It helped

> though; I can log in normally, retain Appearance settings, and keep

> cookies

> from start to start. We also rearranged my files with cut and paste so My

> Documents would actually have my documents in it, and went through

> /misconfig

> to clean up my start-up. And boy, am I glad I backed everything up. Upon

> restart my hard drive was twenty gigs lighter and My Documents is stark

> and

> empty again.

>

> I'm using said computer right now, and other than some brief hang-ups it

> works. No scanner program or comparing it to my sister's identical, fully

> functional computer shows anything wrong with it. Unfortunately it's also

> eating my documents.

>

> One help thread I looked in suggested reinstalling Windows completely and

> wiping my hard drive clean. Really, I would love to. Unfortunately I've

> moved

> a bunch recently and can't find my WXP CD for this computer, and from what

> I've read Dell ones won't do the same thing. Is there anything else I can

> do

> to sterilize and reset this machine without screwing it up?

 

Your observation that Windows looks more or less the way it did

when the PC was new tells much of the story. Windows keeps a

profile folder for each user. In this folder there are the various

settings such as the ones for EMail, IE6 etc. but also your personal

documents. It appears that Windows was unable to load your

profile, hence no settings and no documents.

 

Your stepfather should check the permission structure for your

normal profile folder. It might be c:\documents and settings\laria.

He should also check the event viewer for error messages.