Recoverig from Vista crash

[5Circles]

I wish I could create a more targeted subject line, but at this point I'm not
exactly sure what to ask. I'm starting data recovery, and looking for ideas
on my strategy going forward - in particular should I do a complete system
restore (my inclination), or will I be able to create a stable system some
other way?

The system is a 2 month old laptop, HP DV6780SE running Vista Home Premium.
It has been running well, but just started acting suspiciously - with a
couple of important applications (including Outlook and HP Advisor) stopping
working occasionally for no obvious reason. I can't put my finger on
anything that caused the problems - I just saw a slowly increasing number of
times applications were crashing and decided to try checking the disk to see
if that would help.

I tried checking the disk from Disk Properties | Tools, but wasn't able to
complete the check (can't remember what exactly happened). So I tried
setting the checkbox for a complete check on restart. This seems like a
mistake in retrospect. When I restarted, the system presented me with many
messages about problems with files and renaming etc (I didn't write down the
messages - another mistake). I didn't see what happened when all these
changes were complete, but eventually it presented me with a login password
box.

When I logged in, I saw messages about the profile being new, and when I
tried to run Outlook I got a message about Outlook not being installed for
the current user.

The c:\users folder has folders for the regular user (the only one ever set
up on this machine), public, and also TEMP. TEMP is now the default location
for this user. I think I can find out a way of getting the files from the
regular user to my network, although I haven't figured it out yet.

Any suggestions/thoughts/comments?

Thanks
Mike

 

[5Circles]

I see now that I miswrote. Given the scale of the problems, I'm considering
going back to a system recovery from the original DVDs.

I'm in the middle of copying data to a network drive to facilitate this
recovery, and also protect against any further accidents if I attempt to
rebuild with system restores etc.

I don't think this is a virus or other malware issue. I have Trend Micro
running on the system and it isn't finding anything. I will try cleaning the
registry after I'm able to try system restores, but I'm suspicious and don't
want to waste too much time without a solid cause.

Thanks
Mike

 

[GTS]

Look for a Winlogon application event in eventviewer with a time just after
the complete disk check. It will have the disk check result. Look there
particularly for the report of bad sectors. Clearly you had disk errors and
your user profile was damaged. If there are bad sectors reported, you
should retrieve your data and replace the hard drive. If this machine is
only 2 months old it should be under warranty.
If it a not a matter of bad sectors, the data damage may be due to malware
or various other possible causes.

There are a number of ways of retrieving your data. As you not, it can be
done through a network connection if you are able to run. You may have to
take ownership of the old profiles data files. The drive could also be
connected to another computer by a USB adaptor or otherwise for data
recovery.