XP Admin Profile corrupt no My Documents

Unfortunately I was using my Administrator account as the default user account and it has been corrupted. The machine has created a new Administrator.#### account but all my personal data is gone. I created another user account with admin access. I rebooted the computer and started up in safe mode but even with changing the settings to view hidden files I can not see anything in my documents, it appears to be blank.
Is there another way to restore my old profile, or at least recover everything in my "My Documents folders and subfolders". I am worried about downloading too much stuff on to my computer and overwriting on to my docs and pics.

Any help is appreciated.

StoneCold

 

Since I am not getting any responces do you think I should use the Geek Squad to help recover my data or is there easy software to do that?

Thanks
StoneCold

 

Hey StoneCold.
Alright, so just to understand this properly. You had an account that had admin priviledges, that you now need to get your "My Documents" back out of. You created a new Admin account, but all your information under your old User name is gone?

For just test purposes Say your old user name was User1 okay? and your new one is user2.

Did you check under these locations:
C:\Documents and Settings\User1

And from that, what folders/files are located in it? And honestly, at that point. If your an administrator on your local PC, and the account name does not exist under Documents and Settings (Or Users) if your using Vista. Then your files are probably lost.

Let me know.

 

If you find the correct folder but you are denied permission to access it, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421 and http://www.blogsdna.com/2159/how-to-take-ownership-grant-permissions-to-access-files-folder-in-windows-7.htm For XP and Windows 7 - Vista is similar.

 

Elder_usr
You are correct. I can log in as User2 and I can see the folder documents and settings/administrator but there are no folders below it. Do you think I should download a data recovery program and try to recover the files or should I leave it to a pro to recover my docs, pics Outlook contacts etc? Probably a couple of gigs of data. Some pics I have on an old computer but everything from this year is on the line.:cry

Regards
StoneCold

 

stonecold,
I have not had any luck with free file recovery programs - maybe someone else who may have will post here with their experience?
I have never used a paid version so not sure there either.
You may want to consider System Restore, and go back to a date when you had your profile and data intact.
You may want to see if someone else has a disagreement, or agreement with my post.
I am not at all sure System Restore will enable you to access your profile / data.
I have had a lost profile on a computer, I was able to go to documents and settings/profile1 (whatever profile was named ) and was able to copy data to a new profile, soon thereafter, the profile became corrupt again and a temporary profile was used again. Then it was time to backup data and re-install Windows.
Accessing the old user account data is evidently not the case for you.
Maybe someone else wants to chime in on the GeekSquad etc. I would not think they would be great at data recovery, not sure. I have looked up data recovery services, they can be quite costly, so it may depend on how much you value your data, and how much you can afford.
Going forward - one way to back up certain kinds of data depending on what type - for text, I often send it to my Yahoo and / or Google E-Mail account. I also send some of my pictures to myself on those accounts. I have much of my data backed up on external hard drive - but not always up to date - but I would be able to restore much of my lost data. Hope this info is helpful.
How to run system restore - if you want to try that.
I know it will not bring data back, but perhaps will restore links in Windows that will show the data?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx

Chronk

 

stonecold, do you have any folders called Found in the root of C: ?

 

No there are no folders called found in the root directory.
I used diskdigger to reover some of my files. jpg, mpeg, doc, xls, pdf. Still missing pst from outlook and some turbotax files. I don't know how to tell if I have recovered all my files. I had to use deep digger on diskdigger so my files have no names. Anyone know of a better data recovery program.
Thanks
StoneCold
:cry