Xp user log on problems, help needed asap
 

Hi peeps, I've got the Mrs in tears here, she's got over 2 years worth of school work saved on her laptop but can't access it due to some sort of error.

We keep getting the following message:

Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator.

She has not done anything unusual with her laptop, she said she had been listening to some music off a (genuine) cd and then it started repeating the track, it wouldn't stop, close, or enter task manager. After pulling the battery, the above message was shown after booting up and selecting her profile.

Any help to get around this is much appreciated.

See Error Message: "Windows Cannot Load the Locally Stored Profile"
and Windows cannot load the locally stored profile - Tech Support Forum

and How to copy data from a corrupted user profile to a new profile in Windows XP
and Windows Can Not Load The Locally Stored Profile

Hope one of them helps!

Dave

Thanks, will look in to them now.

Take the hard drive out, Usually two screws to remove the panel, either underneath or on the side.

Put the drive into a desktop pc as a second drive and boot the pc. 9 / 10 times xp will mend all the broken strings and repair the boot.

At worse you will see the drive in My computer and be able to copy all your files over to your pc.

Hope this helps.

Dave.

OR, you should be able to log in under safe mode. Reboot, before the xp screen loads, keep pressing F8. You'll be able to either get into her profile under safe mode and backup her files, or under the administrator.

Thanks so far, safe mode isn't being too helpful, still won't allow me to log into her account.
Not got a pc, so taking out the hard drive is not an option.
Tried to copy from her original account to a new one but it doesn't bring her original account up.

I thought Vista was meant to be crap, Xp is taking the biscuit!!!

Try loggin in as the administrator in safe mode, and open up explorer, you should be able to navigate to her files.

So when you boot in Safe mode, what account and you able to log on to the PC as? Administrator?

What was the account your Mrs was logging in as?

If you go to c:\documents and settings, can you see a folder for her account? e.g c:\documents and settings\JoeBloggs

if the hard drive is on its way out then i would recommend you do the following buy yourself a usb hard drive caddy put the hard drive in it, download and burn Knoppix to a cd, boot knoppix on a computer plug on the usb caddy and copy all your files off.

If the files are valuable to you dont mess about!

She had an administrators account but it seemed to have vanished. Nothing to be found under documents and settings

I've now gone in through a guest account and found most of the files through the search function in explorer.

I had already told her to back things up, maybe she'll take more notice now.

Thanks to you all.

is the computer part of a domain -- or standalone

does she logon with a domain profile or a local profile

as has been said you need to logon with an account that has full admin rights over the laptop

the use explorer to navigate to her profile -- it will under c:\documents and settings\username -- where username was her logon name

if you are not sure, sort by date -- to find the date it was last used
you then need to give the admin account full rights over the profile directory

then you can copy the files to another location

you may have to take ownership first and you may have to change the the option re how hidden files are displayed in my computer~tools~folder options~view

Download Hirens boot cd as it has tools that can wipe any password regardless of whether its on a domain or not.

I dont think the issue is with the password as the profile error will occur once the user has logged on (with the correct password)

although it could be usefull if the admin password is not known

Use something like ERD Commander which will boot into a Windows style GUI and allow full access to the file system, you can also load a USB stick and transfer files.