Profile corrupted

Posted October 20, 2008 · October 20, 2008

A friend of mine has a persistent problem with his XP machine in that every

so often when booting up he gets an error message to the effect that windows

is unable to load the default profile and is instead logging him on with a

temporary profile. The error message also says a registry file it has tried

to load is not in registry format. It then logs on with the default startup

wallpaper and sets up default settings for Internet Explorer, Outlook

Express etc

We can get it going again by doing a system restore, and it seems to work

for a few days, then the same thing happens again. If he leaves the PC on,

it works fine, then at the weekend, it presumably downloaded an automatic

update as when he got to the PC in the morning, it had hung up at the

'windows saving your settings' screen on shutdown. He left it for several

hours when nothing happened, then reset it, and on reboot got the corrupted

profile error message again. On trying to do a system restore, we had to go

back several weeks before we found one that worked, so it looks like the

profile was corrupted and it hadn't been noticed because the PC had been

left on all the time until the forced shutdown.

I understand what the message is saying and why the system restore fixes it,

but am at a loss as to why is it happening in the first place. It is also

very frustrating spending hours having to do several restores until we find

one that works. I have done virus / spyware scans and found nothing. There

was also obviously a shutdown problem after the automatic update (which I

have now turned off) as the PC hung while shutting down - don't know if this

is connected. It normally shuts down ok however, so it could be that the

shutdown problem was caused by the corrupted profile and not the other way

around. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Andy Baker

Posted October 20, 2008 · October 20, 2008

Re: Profile corrupted

"Andy Baker" <abaker@NOSPAMvanputer.com> wrote in message

news:JOmdncdmu--HzmHVnZ2dnUVZ8h2dnZ2d@posted.plusnet...

>A friend of mine has a persistent problem with his XP machine in that every

>so often when booting up he gets an error message to the effect that

>windows is unable to load the default profile and is instead logging him on

>with a temporary profile. The error message also says a registry file it

>has tried to load is not in registry format. It then logs on with the

>default startup wallpaper and sets up default settings for Internet

>Explorer, Outlook Express etc

>

> We can get it going again by doing a system restore, and it seems to work

> for a few days, then the same thing happens again. If he leaves the PC on,

> it works fine, then at the weekend, it presumably downloaded an automatic

> update as when he got to the PC in the morning, it had hung up at the

> 'windows saving your settings' screen on shutdown. He left it for several

> hours when nothing happened, then reset it, and on reboot got the

> corrupted profile error message again. On trying to do a system restore,

> we had to go back several weeks before we found one that worked, so it

> looks like the profile was corrupted and it hadn't been noticed because

> the PC had been left on all the time until the forced shutdown.

>

> I understand what the message is saying and why the system restore fixes

> it, but am at a loss as to why is it happening in the first place. It is

> also very frustrating spending hours having to do several restores until

> we find one that works. I have done virus / spyware scans and found

> nothing. There was also obviously a shutdown problem after the automatic

> update (which I have now turned off) as the PC hung while shutting down -

> don't know if this is connected. It normally shuts down ok however, so it

> could be that the shutdown problem was caused by the corrupted profile and

> not the other way around. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

>

> Andy Baker

Check this previous thread: 'User name assigned to a new profile!' Spamlet

30/9/08. A couple of people recently in this column have had similar

problems. In my case system restore had also been turned off, which did,

however, mean that I looked more deeply into the problem than otherwise I

might.

Related threads: 'How can I delete an account that I can't see?'. Also

there are a lot of handy links in 'Cleaning up windows registry' 30/9/08,

that tell you more about how profiles 'dat' files work.

It is quite tricky getting the right files associated with the right user

name because the security numbers that you can't see have to match; there

are several different places to look for the settings; and every time you

open an account whose 'dat' file is 'already in use' (because it has not

unloaded completely from the last time) a new set of default profile folders

with the user name you want to be with your original files, is added to

confuse the issue...

When you have your files back with the right user name, be sure to download

the free 'user profile hive cleanup service' from MS to make sure that

profiles unload completely after use.

That should get you sorted.

S

Posted October 20, 2008 · October 20, 2008

Re: Profile corrupted

Suggestions:

Right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware, Device Manager. Locate the

entries for your hard disks and double click each entry. On the Policies

tab, uncheck Enable write caching.

You will see a performance decrease because of this, but if the corrupt

registry/user profiles problems cease, then you'll be certain of the cause.

Logon to another account with admin privilege and run System Restore.

Choose the most recent restore point and SR should restore the user

hives.

Or...

Boot into safe mode and log in as Administrator. Copy ntuser.dat from

%windir%\repair to "Documents and Settings\[your user id]". Now do a system

restore to a point in time prior to when the corruption message began to

appear.

Or...

Relocate NTUserdat

Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and find the profile you want to change and

then change ProfileImagePath to the ntuser.dat folder that you want to use.

You must manually copy or move the ntuser.dat file there.

Corrupt Hive

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm

How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307545

Recovering XP using the Recover Console (Line 333) Right hand side:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

--

All the Best,

Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

SupportSpace

http://www.supportspace.com/pages?aiu=kellyskorner