Windows 7 Revovery
My system's main drive died a couple of weeks ago. I took it in to MicroCenter to have the drive restored.
I got the drive back today and have reinstalled it and am running into the following trouble.
When I boot up I get a message that my user profile is hosed up (User profile cannot be loaded). I found some suggestions on the web that suggest I boot up in safe mode and then make some changes to the registry.
I've tried that and when I try to get into regedit, nothing happens.
I tried my Windows rescue disk and didn't get much help. I do have a macrium rescue disk that gets me to a 3-month old copy of the system files from my SSD drive, but I don't think there's a problem with the SSD drive so I hesitate to recover that.
It's looking like all there is to do is reinstall Windows 7 and then go through the process or reinstalling every program.
Any better ideas?
I got the drive back today and have reinstalled it and am running into the following trouble.
When I boot up I get a message that my user profile is hosed up (User profile cannot be loaded). I found some suggestions on the web that suggest I boot up in safe mode and then make some changes to the registry.
I've tried that and when I try to get into regedit, nothing happens.
I tried my Windows rescue disk and didn't get much help. I do have a macrium rescue disk that gets me to a 3-month old copy of the system files from my SSD drive, but I don't think there's a problem with the SSD drive so I hesitate to recover that.
It's looking like all there is to do is reinstall Windows 7 and then go through the process or reinstalling every program.
Any better ideas?
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ASKER
Sorry for the long delay, but I just got my PC back yesterday. It turns out my initial suspicious were correct, I'd been hit by a virus. The attack involved dropper and the action was hiding or destroying my Windows profile file(s).
After getting the same profile error messages when I got the "recovered" drive back, I found a new resource (UpTech Partners) and took the machine to them. They started with a virus scan, removed the virus, and then struggled to figure out a way to recover my profile.
I finally remembered my Macrium system image file, got them the external drive where I saved the image files and my Macrium Reflect recovery disk. They got me back. I didn't have to reinstall Windows, didn't have to reinstall any software and only spent $1000.
Ouch.
I hope to get the $450 back from MicroCenter.
I'm delighted to have a real IT partner now with UpTech. They put way more time into the process than they charged me for and if I had understood the significance of my Macrium backup, the process would have been a lot simpler.
Thanks for your help.
After getting the same profile error messages when I got the "recovered" drive back, I found a new resource (UpTech Partners) and took the machine to them. They started with a virus scan, removed the virus, and then struggled to figure out a way to recover my profile.
I finally remembered my Macrium system image file, got them the external drive where I saved the image files and my Macrium Reflect recovery disk. They got me back. I didn't have to reinstall Windows, didn't have to reinstall any software and only spent $1000.
Ouch.
I hope to get the $450 back from MicroCenter.
I'm delighted to have a real IT partner now with UpTech. They put way more time into the process than they charged me for and if I had understood the significance of my Macrium backup, the process would have been a lot simpler.
Thanks for your help.
ASKER
One thing that occurs to me is that any profile information is more likely to exist on the old drive, not the one the data was recovered to.