okay, i have a Big problem (messed with regedit)

[andylawcc]

my home PC with win 10 was acting up recently, i put up with it until a few nights ago the PC had a hard crash, and after reboot it went into the "User Profile Cannot be Loaded" error, and booted into a "Temp" User Profile with this warning screen:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/46/5c/83/465c8369570023fd1abfa9e2f6903618.png

After searching on youtube for an answer, I found this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEyxD6ZG-jI
specifically, here
https://youtu.be/vEyxD6ZG-jI?t=126
which is basically switching and renaming the two ".bak" and "non-.bak" [S-1-5-21-xxx] profile folder name. Easy enough.
However, there is a slight twist, there is an extra profile folder [S-1-5-82-xxx] which I haven't seen in any YouTube tutorials, not sure if that matters.
This pic is AFTER the screw up, so there is no ".bak" folder in this pic
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipPhJ96i4u4a7kOgI1Zee1flDw4xQSgDY1omRS1_

So after the reboot, the PC still continue to boot into the "Temp" User Profile, but without the warning screen like before. I went back to Regedit, and the .bak folder is gone

Using File Explorer, i was still about to see my 'real' User folder and all its file intact, i was even able to access the files in that folder too.
And here is when i got cocky, I went back to Regedit, into the S-1-5-21-xxx / "non-Bak" folder, and changed the "ProfileImagePath" name from "Temp" to my 'real' user name.
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipNTv3t7qLpYdZWiv_Q-PfTB26pntkigq0XoCnss

Rebooted, and it looks like Windows is loading for the very first time, with all the Welcome To Windows screens and stuff. At that moment, i knew i screwed up, massively. Even though i booted into my 'real' user profile, everything is wiped.

i tried System Restore, but it failed because it had no previous saved points to restore to.

Is there anything i could do now?

 

[deustroop]

We all make these mistakes and they serve as the lesson to always have a clone/image as a back up system, to use if/when the present OS is unavailable, as here.Plan now to acquire a second drive and always have a clone available and this redactedup will have a silver lining. Now I can't tell what stage the boot loader gets to before the boot fails but " all wiped" infers your system files are unavailable. So a reinstall is likely the easiest move. You will also want to consider whether any personal files may be still retrieved. There is software for this but before you go to you tube again, ask here for recommendations. And before that step, provide basic info on the machine hardware, files you would like to save and exact boot messages you receive.




No profanity allowed in the tech forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[andylawcc]

deustroop : thanks, lesson is surely learned, only the hardest one are everlasting.
sorry i exaggerated "All wipe" , what I meant is, everything there is under C:\User\[my username] is gone, so, basically what's on desktop, my document, my download, bookmarks, and maybe even some installed program, but MS Office and Chrome is still installed and working.
I don't really care about the programs, i can always reinstall, it's the personal files on desktop that I wish to retrieve. What software you know that can do this?

 

[daveybrat]

You simply are in a new profile that you created and should not have lost any data. Simply go under your C:, go to 'Users', and then go to your old account. Copy the common areas back over to your new profile (i.e. Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music folders).

The data is still there, trust me.

 

[andylawcc]

daveybrat: let's say my old account is called "AndyPC"; in Regedit I renamed the ProfileImagePath from the "Temp" profile that I was in, to "AndyPC" that I wanted to get back into.
prefail: (which is still not correct)
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipNiuXmX8KkxwX5OQ7XXsWFVEiLDAMim6eolh5dW
postfail:
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipO4DXqYoyHJzjchUiv_oJlCPsi8uOKEZO_nS0LJ

I am now logged in as the "new" AndyPC now, but it's like a fresh install.
under C:\User\AndyPC\Desktop has nothing in it

 

[daveybrat]

daveybrat: let's say my old account is called "AndyPC"; in Regedit I renamed the ProfileImagePath from the "Temp" profile that I was in, to "AndyPC" that I wanted to get back into.
prefail: (which is still not correct)
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipNiuXmX8KkxwX5OQ7XXsWFVEiLDAMim6eolh5dW
postfail:
https://photos.google.com/album/AF1.../AF1QipO4DXqYoyHJzjchUiv_oJlCPsi8uOKEZO_nS0LJ

I am now logged in as the "new" AndyPC now, but it's like a fresh install.
under C:\User\AndyPC\Desktop has nothing in it

So if you look at C:\User\ what other accounts do you see? Anything?

 

[andylawcc]

other than my current [username] one,

Default.migrated [one folder that is empty]
DefaultAppPool [has a bunch of folders like Desktop, Document, Downloads, Favorites, Links, etc, but all empty]
Public
Temp [has all the folders like a real user would, but all empty]

 

[Ketchup]

Are you using the "show hidden files" option? A couple other optoins:
Try not to do any writing to the disk and see if Recuva finds anything. http://filehippo.com/download_recuva/
Look for any folder that ends in .OLD and search that folder for any of your files

 

[vark]

Alas, the only way to truly learn is the hard way... Since I don't see it mentioned, and you're worried about "personal" files - and this is very much a suggestion for the future, once you sort your current issues - my preference has long been to partition the bejeebus out of my harddrive(s). Where you place files and how you size your partitions is wholly a matter of taste, but at the very least it reserves your top level C: drive as your system drive, where Windows lives (as well as those applications that are happiest in your Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders). This way, with your personal stuff living in different partitions, even if you need to pull a full reinstall complete with (partition) format - or a System Restore from a restore point that's maybe a little newer than you like - your own files will continue to exist, whether docs or images or audio or video files or whatever. Backing up from time to time is still a good idea, of course, in case you wake up, one morning, and discover that your luvly HDD (or SSHD) had turned into a brick, overnight, but you know that.

 

[Ketchup]

While partitions can be helpful, the only real way to prevent loss of data is backups. Partitions aren't going to help a bit when the hard drive crashes, for example.

 

[andylawcc]

ketchup, hey, thanks man, Recuva did find a few files..... actually found quite a bit of files, some of them been renamed to 00001.xls 0002.doc 0003.pdf etc, so need some time to recategorize, but at least it was recovered.

they are not however, in .OLD or Hidden.

 

[deustroop]

good to hear some success

 

[Ketchup]

good to hear some success

YES!