Windows XP profile loading is broken!

[HangFire]

Compy is messed.

I was downloading something and playing a game, as I usually am. When I quit the game, I noticed my downloading program has froze. Not uncommon.

When I tried to close it, I noticed it couldn't be clicked at all, usually I can force close it.

Then I noticed the only thing I could do was to change window focus, aside from that, everything had froze. No big deal, I thought. I cut power and restarted.

Then when it was about to load my profile in windows, it spazzed out some error saying something to the effect of "Could not load default profile, may be corrupted. Consult administrator". It then after I hit OK it gives me another one saying its loading a temporary new profile, that will be erased on shutdown.


Then on login it gives some other error, but after looking it up, its something that Windows always does with a brand new profile. Not the cause of the problem.


Anyways, I made a new profile, thinking the restart farked up my profile. No good, all new profiles have the same problem.

So.. my XP box is now failing to load user profiles. The PC works, but after each restart its like having to re-setup a new PC every time. Desktop settings, startup, browser settings, every is defaulted each time.


I'm looking now for a solution, I'd like to fix this without a format. I don't have a XP disk, and I'd have to go on an 2 hour drive if I want to get mine.

I'll update this if I can fix it myself, but please anybody try and suggest something.



I've looked into the possibility of a virus, but nothings come up so far. I might pick through my firewall log to see if some script kiddie was playing with things.

[Denny]

I'd run scandisk, because you had to do a manual power off it could have corrupted a sector or two on your hard disk. Also scan for spyware, you never know but there is some nasty one's out there, i had one lock me out of regedit once.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Normally if you reinstall a new XP over the previous one without reformatting, it should fix the broken stuff and preserve the registry. Of course you'll have to upgrade to SP2 again but that will be better than reformatting, you won't lose all your apps. I never experienced that problem, though.

[HangFire]

Allright, after some messing around I've got it mostly fixed.

I copied the NTUSER.DAT file from the new temp profile XP makes, and pasted it over my old profile's one.

As a result, I lost most of my desktop settings but it doesn't give any errors anymore.


Strange, XP still won't let me manually create a "good" profile, but it can create a new temp profile just fine.


As for the scandisk, I should probably do one soon. For the spyware, I regularily clean it and I'm quite careful with my internet use so I usually don't have many problems with that.

Some spyware I have cannot be detected, and I have no idea where it could have stuck itself. If I use the internet without my firewall, I get blasted with pop up message ads.


And I'm using SP1, not 2. I've heard mixed things about 2, so I never bothered to update. I should probably both format this thing soon and update to SP2 as soon as possible.


But anyway, thanks a lot for the fast replies. For Windows, a format is usually the only way to fix things. What I keep doing with my PC is like putting little band aids over gunshot wounds.

[biohazerd87]

you should def get SP2

your first problem was pulling the plug... that is the last resort. The best thing to do it hold the power button for 5 seconds and let it power down. Pulling the power on a something like a computer is about the worst thing you can do besides something physical like throwing a magnet or glass of water onto the computer. You best bet is to make a new profile back up all your data and documents and then reinstall windows

[Denny]

I agree, you should install SP2. The biggest problems i think people were having was that they forgot to diable windows firewall while running a 3rd party firewall and they'd have problems. Another thing was Windows Firewall blocking ports without informing the user or something, i can't remember.

Who know's installing SP2 may fix your problem. In any case, most SP2 installs have the option of archiving your old system files, going this route if you decide not to keep SP2 for some reason you can uninstall it and restore your old files. Doing this takes up around 300MB extra space though.

Personally i never had any troubles with it, however it did mess up my Sound Blaster drivers in WMP, but after updating to the latest drivers it fixed the problem.

[HangFire]

I didn't actually pull the plug, I hit the quick-reset button on my PC.


And I'll probably look into SP2 after I format this thing next.

[stefanhendriks]

whenever i figure that my computer is messed up, all i care for is backupping my stuff and then totally format the thing to begin a fresh install. It takes a day, but then you don't have to touch your computer for a year or more.... (my record was around 1.5 year)

[biohazerd87]

yeah.... i have so much important stuff... I biuld websites for other people also. so i have back ups of the back ups. Like another harddrive copy and a cd copy that way i know i have it.

[Denny]

Usually i wait till i get a CD full of stuff to burn then i back it up. And before i reformat i just burn my whole My Documents folder on a blank DVD then just copy and paste into the new install.

Usually i reformat once a year, mainly because i wanna dual-boot with an older OS so i can mess around with it. Either that or Server 2000/2003.