Anyone ever run into this?

[rurbaniak]

Ran an Repair of the OS in XP Home. While the repair worked and got everything running again, apps and all, the Documents and Settings folder was wiped out. Nothing in My Documents, etc.

I ran GetDataBack on the drive and it did not find anything to recover though.

Now, because the system was unbootable at the time, I did not see if there were files there to begin with, but according to the home user there was. I've run a ton of these and never experienced such a thing.

[14049752]

Did you check in the Documents and Settings folder to see if there is an old user account.
Typically the repair install does a "user.pcname" folder for repair installs, and the old user data is in the old user folder.

[rurbaniak]

Originally Posted by 14049752

Did you check in the Documents and Settings folder to see if there is an old user account.
Typically the repair install does a "user.pcname" folder for repair installs, and the old user data is in the old user folder.

Yea, nothing there.

[RyanMeray]

I image all drives before doing anything with repair installs or virus removal, so I'd be able to go back and check if there was data there to begin with.

If GetDataBack didn't do you any good, though, I'm out of ideas.

[rurbaniak]

Originally Posted by RyanMeray

I image all drives before doing anything with repair installs or virus removal, so I'd be able to go back and check if there was data there to begin with.

If GetDataBack didn't do you any good, though, I'm out of ideas.

Yea, the one I don't image bites me in the ass. But, I'm doubting that it's actually missing. Everything else seems fine.

[usacvlr]

Is their profile folder actually gone and are you sure you did a repair and not a full blown reinstall?

[JRDtechnet]

I suspect you didn't do a repair install but a complete install over the old one. When you did the install did it say that x:\windows already exists or something? If its a real repair install it will say "Do you want Windows to attempt to repair" and a lot of the times it won't give you the repair option.

Anyway reason I say you probably did a Full install is because I've seen what you described when you do a full install and use the same profile name when setting it up (oh thats another clue...if you had to type in a user name during install thats a full install....repair install shouldn't ask you to create a user name). I did the same thing on my computer and I ran every recovery tool in existence...didn't come back.

[usacvlr]

The reason you can't get the data back is because the user profiles folder would have been created back when the computer was first set up originally and likewise any data added to it would be nearer the beginning of the drive. When you did a full reinstall as I already mentioned you probably did do,, you wrote over the original profiles folder with the new windows install data and god knows what else,, drivers etc. You're talking about retrieving data that's 2 or 3 levels deep on the platters. Short of the FBI maybe,, I think it's had it

[seedubya]

@JRDtechnet & usacvlr - OP calls it a repair install and says that the APPS are working afterwards therefore it sounds very like an repair install to me. If he had done a new install into the same windows folder the entire registry would have been rewritten and none of the apps would work.

[I.T. Works]

You could do a quick search for *.jpg or something like that just on the off-chance that their files are hiding somewhere else. Maybe you or the client would recognize something and strike gold Just a thought.