Accidentally deleted user profiles on Windows 7 - can't log on with other users now

Question

I did a horrible mistake about 2 days ago; I was thinking of cleaning up my PC, so I thought of emptying the user profiles' folders. There were also some users whose accounts I'd already deleted, so I thought about completely deleting their folders.

However it seems that while doing so, the Default profiles and all others except the one on which I was logged on got deleted.

So now, I don't have libraries anymore, can't even create them, I can't login with other users (from the domain); it tells me "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.".

So does anyone has an idea of how I can correct this?

Answer 1

First Try a Microsoft System Restore, Boot from a Windows 7 install disc and select "repair your computer", then select "System Restore", pick a date before you deleted the folders, see link below on how to boot from the W7 disc.

If this does not work move to the next solution

Use a W7 install disc and boot from it to get the recovery environment, then use the command prompt to attempt to enable the hidden admin account, hit enter after each these 2 commands.

C:

net user administrator /active:yes

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How to get to the command prompt from a W7 disc. This is for Vista but is the same using a W7 disc. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial147.html

After you enable the admin account restart and see if you get a new admin icon, see if you can log into that account, if you can create a new user account in control panel for another way to log in. You don't want to use the new admin account for everyday use. If you get it repaired you can disable that account by using the following command while in Windows

net user administrator /active:no

If you still get the error and you did delete the C:\users\default folder, you will have to get a copy of that folder from another windows 7 PC and copy it back where it belongs, use an Ubuntu boot CD to do this, the link below is for backing up data, but it could be used to copy a folder to the hard drive also.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

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**NOTE: you need to use a regular Windows 7 install dvd, a "recovery" DVD from some PC manufacturers (HP etc.) will not work, if you do not have one you can download the proper ISO file from this link, then burn it to DVD as an Image (not data). Be sure to pick the proper version (Home,Pro etc) and bit (32 or 64)

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/04/28/download-windows-7-iso-official-32-bit-and-64-bit-direct-download-links/

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Answer 2

• Open up the Registry editor
• Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
• Under that key delete the key for every profile you deleted. Look at the ProfileImagePath value under each key to determine which keys need to be deleted. The keys will be named something like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-3050247859-2755525454-1526568157-1000

A comment from a Microsoft Support on this thread says:

A profile that is manually deleted does not remove the security identifier (SID) from the profile list in the registry.

If the SID is present, Windows will try to load the profile by using the ProfileImagePath that points to a nonexistent path. Therefore, the profile cannot be loaded.

Also see kb947215.