User profile troubles!

My client phoned me up this morning to say he has lost his icons on his desktop, and his settings. He got Error 1505 in the Event Log; I looked this up, and it said that that error means that the system cannot find his user profile. He said he was using it normally last night, and it was like the above this morning.
I followed everything suggested for resolving it, but none of it worked.
Then I checked the disk health by using Active Hard Disk Monitor, but it refused connection! (in other words, it wouldn't 'connect' to the disk!)
SMART was healthy (as checked by Stellar Smart Early Disk Warning System)
I used Ubuntu Linux to check the disk by using Disk Monitor, the disk was reported to be healthy, but on the Ubuntu loading screen, it kept saying there were buffering errors on device sr0 (is sr0 the hard disk or the CD drive?)
It is a Dell Dimension C521 with 1.5GB RAM and Windows XP Home Edition, purchased in February 2006 (reinstalled everything because of malware in September 2008).
Is it time for another reinstallation do you think?
Or shallI follow the instructions in here:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/33588.aspx?p=2

 

sr0 is the CD drive

 

Somehow, apart from my clients profile, his daughter's profile, and the Administrator profile in the Registry, a temporary profile had been created. I deleted this profile, rebooted, and everything was fine.