Windows cannot load the locally stored profile?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pheasant Plucker®
  • Start date Start date
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Pheasant Plucker®

Hi there,

I wonder if some kind soul can help me please as I find myself in a hotel
room in Sheffield trying to fix one of our Technicians laptops before
morning...

After running Symantec Live Update (may or not be connected but I thought
I'd mention it) when the original user tried to log on as he has always done
XP gave the following messages;

"Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this
error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. If
this problem persists, contact your network administrator."

Followed 30 seconds later by;

"Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a
temporary profile.
Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off"

Now I am guessing the NTuser.dat or its associated files have been corrupted
and when I look at system restore the last restore point is over a month
old...you can guess at this point there is no backup...

I seem unable to boot into Last Known Good as I get a blue Stop 0x0000007B
error(!?) but I can go into Safe Mode.

I created a new User account in Safe Mode with the idea of copying all of
the files apart from the 3 usual suspects but strangely, when I create a new
account I do not see it in Documents & Settings\New_User although according
to Control Panel\Users the user does exist.

I do of course have Show hidden & system files turned on and Unhide system
files and am logging on with a different user with Administrator
privileges...

I then created a second new user this time logging on normally with
Administrator rights but true to form this cannot be seen either...using
Search only finds references to either new account under New_User.bmp in All
Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures...

Why can't I see the two new users I created where I would expect to see them
in Documents & Settings?

I am short on ideas now and don't really want to run Chkdsk unless I really
have to...

I really need to get this working by morning which is only @ 7 hours
away...no sleep for me then!
 
When you log on as the new user, did you right mouse click on start and
select Explorer. (This will take you directly to the current user profile
logged onto the system)
Also I would suggest deleting all temp files including IE temp, get rid of
any of the MS update uninstall folder in C:\windows, and defrag the system.
(time consuming but sometimes well worth the effort)
 
Pheasant said:
Hi there,

I wonder if some kind soul can help me please as I find myself in a hotel
room in Sheffield trying to fix one of our Technicians laptops before
morning...

After running Symantec Live Update (may or not be connected but I thought
I'd mention it) when the original user tried to log on as he has always
done XP gave the following messages;

"Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this
error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. If
this problem persists, contact your network administrator."

Followed 30 seconds later by;

"Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a
temporary profile.
Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off"

Now I am guessing the NTuser.dat or its associated files have been
corrupted and when I look at system restore the last restore point is over
a month old...you can guess at this point there is no backup...

I seem unable to boot into Last Known Good as I get a blue Stop 0x0000007B
error(!?) but I can go into Safe Mode.

I created a new User account in Safe Mode with the idea of copying all of
the files apart from the 3 usual suspects but strangely, when I create a
new account I do not see it in Documents & Settings\New_User although
according to Control Panel\Users the user does exist.

I do of course have Show hidden & system files turned on and Unhide system
files and am logging on with a different user with Administrator
privileges...

I then created a second new user this time logging on normally with
Administrator rights but true to form this cannot be seen either...using
Search only finds references to either new account under New_User.bmp in
All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures...

Why can't I see the two new users I created where I would expect to see
them in Documents & Settings?
Click to expand...

You have to log into the new accounts once before they will show up in
Documents & Settings so you can copy anything to them.

Copy a User Account - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=811151

Malke
 
Thanks for the quick replies PassPlay & Malke,

OK...I didn't realise I had to log on with the new profile to get it to show
in Documents & Settings...learn something every day! :-)

Done that and copied all the files from the original profile (minus the 3 x
NTUser.* files) and am now able to log on without seeing the error message.

Although I can access most of the programs that were originally on there
(including the custom app the Techs use for work which was about the most
important) things like their original desktop settings, icons, shortcuts,
wallpaper, customisations etc. including the mail account & mail have gone.

It looks like the My Documents folder is back to its former glory but I
guess there isn't a quick way to put all the missing stuff back as if
nothing had ever happened he asks knowing the answer already? ;^)

How best to go about restoring the mail account details, mail and anything
else that may be relevant?

We use Outlook 2003 and not Outlook Express if that makes any difference...

What would happen if I copied over any or all of new user NTUser.* files
into the original profile and tried logging on with that original user?

Thanks again & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
 
This sometimes happens to laptops if the battery dies and it doesn't
properly shutdown XP. I believe another fix is to start in safe mode with a
profile that has admin rights and do a restore to a point prior to the
profile becoming corrupt.

Bubba
 
Thanks for the time taken to reply Bryan,

Definitely not caused by a battery discharging...

Also as I said in my initial post I am unable to do a system restore as the
only one I can find is dated 10 November and is really too far back I
fear...

Thanks anyway.

Kind regards,
-=Glyn=-
 
Pheasant said:
Thanks for the quick replies PassPlay & Malke,

OK...I didn't realise I had to log on with the new profile to get it to
show in Documents & Settings...learn something every day! :-)

Done that and copied all the files from the original profile (minus the 3
x NTUser.* files) and am now able to log on without seeing the error
message.

Although I can access most of the programs that were originally on there
(including the custom app the Techs use for work which was about the most
important) things like their original desktop settings, icons, shortcuts,
wallpaper, customisations etc. including the mail account & mail have
gone.

It looks like the My Documents folder is back to its former glory but I
guess there isn't a quick way to put all the missing stuff back as if
nothing had ever happened he asks knowing the answer already? ;^)

How best to go about restoring the mail account details, mail and anything
else that may be relevant?

We use Outlook 2003 and not Outlook Express if that makes any
difference...

What would happen if I copied over any or all of new user NTUser.* files
into the original profile and tried logging on with that original user?
Click to expand...

You don't want to copy the NTUser.* files into the old profile. The old
profile is corrupt. You should have an Outlook .pst file somewhere copied
over from the old user account. Restore it.

Yes, some cosmetic things like desktop settings, shortcuts, etc. will need
to be recreated.

Malke
 
Thanks for all the replies guys, it was much appreciated in my hour of need
while everyone else was sleeping...

Stayed at it until 3:30am and decided the only thing left to do was run
ChkDsk and tell it to Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and
attempt recovery of bad sectors.

Left it running, went to bed, woke up at 6:15 after 2.75 hours sleep to a
black screen.

Rebooted, logged on as the original user and hey presto, logged on fine and
all was well :-)

There was a message saying something about a corrupt sector/registry or
something along those lines but it was business as usual.

Just thought I'd follow up on this in case anybody else may be searching for
a solution in the future.

Can't guarantee it will work for everyone but it worked for me as a last
resort - don't like running utilities like ChkDsk or Disk Defragmenter
unless I really have to...

Insecurity harking back to my Amiga days...lol

Thanks & kind regards,
-=pp=-
 
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