Missing profiles

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sunny
  • Start date Start date
S

Sunny

My daughter says her PC (XP Pro SP2 updated) was operating normally when
she logged off last night, but when she logged on this evening it 'went
to a blue screen'.

I was expecting a BSOD, but it was the lighter blue background you
normally see during logon, with an active mouse cursor but nothing to
click on. The system did not respond to the keyboard, so I pressed the
reset button.

The system booted normally, but after logging on XP said it couldn't
find her profile and was logging her on with a generic profile. That
dialog timed out, and we were back to an unresponsive system (except for
the mouse cursor) again. Light Blue Screen Of Death :-)

Since the PC hadn't been used today, I restored last night's image
backup from the file server and the system is operating normally. Virus
and malware scans on the restored system find nothing worse than
tracking cookies.

The image backup ran at 5am, and my daughter tried to log on at 6pm - so
something nasty happened to XP between those times, while nobody was
logged on. Any idea what?

Sunny
 
Sunny said:
The system booted normally, but after logging on XP said it couldn't
find her profile and was logging her on with a generic profile. That
dialog timed out, and we were back to an unresponsive system (except for
the mouse cursor) again. Light Blue Screen Of Death :-)
Click to expand...

See "Error Message: Windows Cannot Load Your Profile Because It May Be
Corrupted" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318011).
 
Thorsten said:
See "Error Message: Windows Cannot Load Your Profile Because It May Be
Corrupted" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318011).
Click to expand...

I read that before posting. It wasn't very helpful:

"CAUSE
This issue may occur if the current user profile is damaged."

I'd like to know _how_ the user profile gets damaged, especially while
nobody is logged in, and hopefully how to prevent a repeat occurrence.

Sunny
 
Sunny said:
I read that before posting. It wasn't very helpful:

"CAUSE
This issue may occur if the current user profile is damaged."

I'd like to know _how_ the user profile gets damaged, especially while
nobody is logged in, and hopefully how to prevent a repeat occurrence.

Sunny
Click to expand...

It happened again.

This time I tried Microsoft's resolution - but since the problem
prevents anybody from logging in, a 'solution' that requires logging in
as the first step is not helpful.

I ran Seagate's hard drive diagnostic tool, which found and re-mapped a
single bad sector near the end of the drive. I ran it several more
times, and it consistently gave the drive a clean bill of health - so I
restored the latest disk image and the system is operational again.

I won't be surprised if the system misbehaves again soon, and will
replace the hard drive if it develops any more bad sectors - but for now
it appears the first step in resolving damaged profile problems should
be hardware diagnostics.

Sunny
 
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