Reaching out for help with corrupt profile

[crabig]

Hi all,

I've got myself a good one here. Customer brought in a Vista laptop that was giving the message:

"The User Profile Service failed the logon”

I initially thought I could go into the registry and fix it there, but her profile is gone. It was replaced by a profile named test. I believe I have found the source of the issue, the hard drive was 97% full. 200GB of photos alone. I ran a backup of the user data using Fab's. I then moved all the photos to a directory on my external hard drive to clear space.

Customer is adamant about not doing N&P unless last resort. I'm trying a system restore now, but don't hold out much hope.

I have tried adding a new user via command line, but it doesn't show up anywhere. I've also tried activating the Administrator account via command line, to no avail.

At this point, I'm stumped. Any one got any good ideas I can try?

 

[SilverLeaf]

Have you looked at this? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215

 

[Martyn]

Hi all,

I've got myself a good one here. Customer brought in a Vista laptop that was giving the message:

"The User Profile Service failed the logon”

I initially thought I could go into the registry and fix it there, but her profile is gone. It was replaced by a profile named test. I believe I have found the source of the issue, the hard drive was 97% full. 200GB of photos alone. I ran a backup of the user data using Fab's. I then moved all the photos to a directory on my external hard drive to clear space.

Customer is adamant about not doing N&P unless last resort. I'm trying a system restore now, but don't hold out much hope.

I have tried adding a new user via command line, but it doesn't show up anywhere. I've also tried activating the Administrator account via command line, to no avail.

At this point, I'm stumped. Any one got any good ideas I can try?

I think I had this issue the other day and it wouldn't allow you to login? I used Konboot which allowed me to get in and I created another account. I created the new account, logged out and rebooted. At this point I had two logins and both worked. My client was leaving for a holiday so took it like that with both accounts working so I couldn't get any further into the problem.

 

[CLC]

I use this and its works really great, a good price too.

http://www.daossoft.com/products/password-recovery-bundle.html

 

[markcuk11]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/reprofiler/

If its loading a temp profile use the above program to sync it back with the proper one..

Mark

 

[mason]

I had this problem today and i used system restore and it said restore had failed but it worked and went in to windows.

I also ran Windows update to the latest update because i think this issue is due to a corrupt windows update.

Full windows update ran and properly has been fixed and not come back.

 

[NYJimbo]

I had this problem today and i used system restore and it said restore had failed but it worked and went in to windows.

Just a side note: Wow, I have seen that so many times, but the restore actually is complete. I've reached the point where if a restore appears to fail I don't believe its failed until I boot it and walk away for ten minutes or so to see what it finally does.

 

[PCSComputerGuy]

What's with all the broken profiles lately? I wonder if its from WU...

 

[FremontPC]

A good time to check the HDD with Crystal Disk Info. BTW, Defraggler also has a SMART report tab that interprets the readings and gives an assessment, but CDI reports on all drives (including USB) in one shot.

 

[andcorptech]

We have had a lot of these in the last couple of weeks too. Pretty easy to fix with but what the cause is I'm not sure . Nothing seems common amongst them all .

 

[ManistiqueComputers]

We've seen a couple of these recently as well. The ones I have worked on have all been able to be fixed using the registry backup profiles though.

 

[SilverLeaf]

We've seen a couple of these recently as well. The ones I have worked on have all been able to be fixed using the registry backup profiles though.

Same here. Backup profile worked here as well. I don't have enough data to track down a cause though. The last one I had was also suffering from malware (0Access and others) as well as a failing drive. I attributed the corrupt profile to the failing drive....but it could have been the malware as well, or even a wonky update. But, it could be just a coincidence that these seem to be popping up shortly after the last patch Tuesday.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Just a side note: Wow, I have seen that so many times, but the restore actually is complete. I've reached the point where if a restore appears to fail I don't believe its failed until I boot it and walk away for ten minutes or so to see what it finally does.

Just had this happen to me over the weekend. Now I know to reboot and observe to know for sure...

 

[MJS051]

Interesting to see this thread here. I've had to fix 3 or 4 corrupt profiles this week alone, which is something I rarely if ever encounter.

 

[HubCityPC]

I had one of these last week as well. It's odd that this seems to be popping up so much lately. I wonder what gives?

 

[citizensmith]

8 of these across this weekend. 5 new networked pc - thought it was a duff w7 clone job at first as re imagining cured it. 4 of those broke again with .bak profiles. Fixed per kb article. No idea why 1 not affected as identical config.
Of others 2 w7 and 2 vista - needed to activate the Admin account offline to fix both vista home.
The darn rebooting with these repeating updates is a problem with bussiness critical systems. Glad we don't cover the passenger terminals

 

[TimM]

I was reading this thread and thinking that I hadn't seen that problem for ages.

Less than five minutes later, the phone rings... "Hi, I'm getting an error message about the user profile service...". Seems like something has run amok. A Windows update would have to be the most likely culprit.

 

[ThanatosOfOne]

Wow, you guys are seeing this too huh? I have had 4 in the last week or so. The registry fix has worked on all of them so far.

 

[crabig]

Greetings all.

Sorry it took so long to get back to everyone. It's been a strange week here on the coast... Anyhow, I was able to do a system restore to a different date, and the profile I created suddenly appeared. I logged in, and deleted the busted profile (I had already backed up user data with Fab's), and created the customer a new profile. I then restore her backup, minus the Pictures directory. I put the Pictures directory onto the D drive (did I mention, this is a DV7 with two physical hard drives?), and all seems well.

When the customer comes in to pickup the machine, I'm going to give her a quick lesson on how to tell when you drive is too damn full, and you're in danger of losing it all.

Thank you for the fast replies, and if I ever find myself in this situation again, I will definitely try the profile sync tool.