[SOLVED] User Profile Service Error Leads to Other Issues

[LABFE]

I'm repairing a PC that had the common "the user profile service failed the logon: user profile cannot be loaded." The client has told me that the problem appeared last Friday morning when he went to logon to the pc, he said the screen appeared like it does after a Microsoft update so he believed that was the cause. I verified that windows did update on the machine at 3am that night. I went through the common fix for the issue found on several sites around the web and it resolved the problem. Able to log into user's account and all seemed good.

The client wanted me to tune up the pc because it's been sluggish so I proceeded to uninstall unnecessary programs. After uninstalling a bunch of games loaded by grandson a few yrs ago and some bloatware I restarted the PC only to have Windows fail to reload. After several minutes I did hard shutdown. Upon powering back on pc entered "startup repair." Startup repair failed twice and since system restore has failed twice. Any advice?

 

[MichaelBits]

Have you checked the HDD yet?

 

[LABFE]

Have you checked the HDD yet?

I just ran HD Smart Test and it says overall health self assessment test result: passed. But in the "type column" there are a bunch of "old age" and 3 "prefail." What would you make of that?

I've tried to find guidance on web for reading smart test results, but have never located anything conclusive.

The pc (desktop) is about 8 yrs old and original HDD. Would you lean towards this being the HDD? It should have occurred to me to check it, but they seemed convinced it had to do with the updates and none of the guidance online pointed me towards HDD health as cause for user profile issue.

 

[FremontPC]

Yeah, due to the age of the drive and your initial info, you've likely got your perp.

Get a copy of Crystal Disk Info, the Portable (Zip) version (no installer). See what that says, it's a very quick test. If you see Reallocated Sectors or Sectors Pending Reallocation, that's especially suspicious. Let us know what you find out.

http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

V 6.7.5, Standard Edition, far right column.

 

[cypress]

Now would be the time to at the very least slave the drive and fire up Fabs and backup that data. 8 years on that drive is a lot of wear and tear. The fact that it has lasted so long is good enough. Your primary focus is making sure that data is backed up and safe. Then after all back ups have been made run the tools suggested such as Crystal Disk info or even better gSmartcontrol. Seems like flags already came up with "old age and prefail".

Up sell to an SSD instead of going the mechanical drive route.

 

[MichaelBits]

I generally ignore what the smart check says in regards to HDD health.

I look at the numbers under raw value.
I use gsmart control to access the smart data.

Example:

First thing I look at is Power on Time. This can give you a general idea of its usage age so to speak. In my example I'm showing an older drive that has been active quite a bit. When you combine this number with power cycle and start/stop, it gives you a basic picture of its use. As you can see, this example drive has high power on time.

The main figures you want to look at are any of the error rates and retries. If you see those have raw values (other than 0), depending on the amount, it's most likely a drive beginning to fail. Gsmart will give you basic info on the entry as well.

In my example drive, all though it has high usage, it has no errors what-so-ever.

This is a very basic guide to the numbers.... over time you will begin to get a feel for them and can flag a bad drive with a glance.

 

[LABFE]

Yeah, due to the age of the drive and your initial info, you've likely got your perp.

Get a copy of Crystal Disk Info, the Portable (Zip) version (no installer). See what that says, it's a very quick test. If you see Reallocated Sectors or Sectors Pending Reallocation, that's especially suspicious. Let us know what you find out.

http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

V 6.7.5, Standard Edition, far right column.

I've just ran Crystal Disk Info (portable version) and the health status says "Caution." There is a row that says Reallocated Sectors Count, Current 200, Worst 200, Threshold 140. Another row that says Reallocation Event Count, Current 200, Worst 200, Threshold 0. The Caution warning appears to correlate with the row Current Pending Sector Count, Current 200, Worst 200, Threshold 0.

 

[LABFE]

Now would be the time to at the very least slave the drive and fire up Fabs and backup that data. 8 years on that drive is a lot of wear and tear. The fact that it has lasted so long is good enough. Your primary focus is making sure that data is backed up and safe. Then after all back ups have been made run the tools suggested such as Crystal Disk info or even better gSmartcontrol. Seems like flags already came up with "old age and prefail".

Up sell to an SSD instead of going the mechanical drive route.

I did get a backup amidst the process of troubleshooting. I'm about to run gSmartcontrol.

 

[LABFE]

I generally ignore what the smart check says in regards to HDD health.

I look at the numbers under raw value.
I use gsmart control to access the smart data.

Example: View attachment 5678

First thing I look at is Power on Time. This can give you a general idea of its usage age so to speak. In my example I'm showing an older drive that has been active quite a bit. When you combine this number with power cycle and start/stop, it gives you a basic picture of its use. As you can see, this example drive has high power on time.

The main figures you want to look at are any of the error rates and retries. If you see those have raw values (other than 0), depending on the amount, it's most likely a drive beginning to fail. Gsmart will give you basic info on the entry as well.

In my example drive, all though it has high usage, it has no errors what-so-ever.

This is a very basic guide to the numbers.... over time you will begin to get a feel for them and can flag a bad drive with a glance.

I've just ran gsmart control and here's what I've got. Power-On Time 2227, Power Cycle 3333, Start/Stop Count 3368. Of the rows that are for error rates and retries the only one that doesn't have a raw value of '0' is Raw Read Error Rate with a raw value of '2.' I've attached a photo of the smart data.

Let me know if a larger photo would be helpful.

 

[FremontPC]

It's the raw value that we're interested in (for both programs). Looks like you've got 3 sectors pending reallocation on that drive. That means they've been marked as bad, but the drive can't manage to swap them out with spares from the pool of sectors it has on tap for this purpose.

This drive would get one thumb down on my bench. That and being a WD Blue with 8 years on it earns it two thumbs down.

 

[johnrobert]

If drive is 8 years old say no more

 

[LABFE]

It's the raw value that we're interested in (for both programs). Looks like you've got 3 sectors pending reallocation on that drive. That means they've been marked as bad, but the drive can't manage to swap them out with spares from the pool of sectors it has on tap for this purpose.

This drive would get one thumb down on my bench. That and being a WD Blue with 8 years on it earns it two thumbs down.

I'm replacing the drive. Thanks for the assistance.

 

[glennd]

If drive is 8 years old say no more

If the drive is WD Blue say no more

 

[LABFE]

So what brand do you fellows like?

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

So what brand do you fellows like?

Western Digital Black or Samsung EVO or Pro.

 

[FremontPC]

^^^^^ This. But use Acronis or the like to clone. I tried Samsung's software for cloning once, it blowed up real good.

 

[glennd]

^^^^^ This. But use Acronis or the like to clone. I tried Samsung's software for cloning once, it blowed up real good.

Not happy to hear that.

 

[FremontPC]

Not happy to hear that.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't tried it for over a year, but it was so bad that I really haven't been inclined to give it another go. Reflect has a nice interface too. More like Gparted where you can drag and drop partitions. Makes it easier to resize partitions or leave them out entirely. Acronis has always been kind of clunky about that.

 

[cypress]

Western Digital Black or Samsung EVO or Pro.

Yup only one's that I would recommend.

I have used Samsung Migration Data Software and no issues so far.