Bizarre Windows XP Desktop issue

Lovely Bloke

Friend of mine is a pretty basic computer user - browsing, torrents, videos and playing music are all he does.

He had a fairly old desktop, think it's a Dell, running XP SP2.

The issue is really strange, and not something I've encountered before, anywhere.

Every time he restarts the machine it's like he's done a fresh install of the OS.

All data is gone - for example, while I was there he downloaded a film, we played it via VLC player, then restarted the machine.

The video file was gone, vlc player was gone, Chrome was gone.

The folder on the desktop called Movies was gone, there was no trace of anything that had been there five minutes previously.

Then we installed vlc, chrome and utorrent. Got a video file, put it into a new folder called Movies, on the desktop. Played the file, restarted and everything was gone.

The first time this happened to him, it wiped a whole 1TB external drive he had connected.

Any ideas? It has me stumped.

Gamayun

TheNinthGate wrote: »

Friend of mine is a pretty basic computer user - browsing, torrents, videos and playing music are all he does.

If this is the case then I would recommend moving to a Linux OS, a light one such as Lubuntu would accomplish all of these no hassle and would less bloated than XP.

He could have VLC, Tranmission (equivalent to uTorrent) and some browsers up and running in no time.

That's assuming that it's an XP issue and not a hardware one...

yoyo

Gamayun wrote: »

If this is the case then I would recommend moving to a Linux OS, a light one such as Lubuntu would accomplish all of these no hassle and would less bloated than XP.

He could have VLC, Tranmission (equivalent to uTorrent) and some browsers up and running in no time.

That's assuming that it's an XP issue and not a hardware one...

Helpful responses only please. See the charter.

The user profile is probably corrupted. It can be fixed but you'd need to edit the registry to do so. If you're ok with the registry work, here's what you have to do.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

There should be a key there with a .bak extension, and another one which is the same except for the .bak extension. Such as S-1-5-21-4126799402-4000726322-1320168193-1001 and S-1-5-21-4126799402-4000726322-1320168193-1001.bak. Export these to .reg files (just in case). Delete the one which doesn't have a .bak extension and rename the .bak to remove the .bak (so it has the same name as the one you deleted).

Reboot after this and it should work, assuming that ntuser.dat isn't corrupt. If it doesn't work, you'll need to create a new user and import the data from the old user.

gctest50

TheNinthGate wrote: »

Friend of mine is a pretty basic computer user - browsing, torrents, videos and playing music are all he does.

He had a fairly old desktop, think it's a Dell, running XP SP2.

The issue is really strange, and not something I've encountered before, anywhere.

Every time he restarts the machine it's like he's done a fresh install of the OS.

Did he just buy the desktop second-hand ?

There's a few software tools exactly that - intended for use in internet cafes , schools etc.

There may be no sign of the software running at all until you press a "magic" key combination

Agent Smith

Karsini wrote: »

The user profile is probably corrupted. It can be fixed but you'd need to edit the registry to do so. If you're ok with the registry work, here's what you have to do.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

There should be a key there with a .bak extension, and another one which is the same except for the .bak extension. Such as S-1-5-21-4126799402-4000726322-1320168193-1001 and S-1-5-21-4126799402-4000726322-1320168193-1001.bak. Export these to .reg files (just in case). Delete the one which doesn't have a .bak extension and rename the .bak to remove the .bak (so it has the same name as the one you deleted).

Reboot after this and it should work, assuming that ntuser.dat isn't corrupt. If it doesn't work, you'll need to create a new user and import the data from the old user.

If you dont feel confortable hoking around the registery, Just format and re-install XP. If its like a fresh install everytime you boot

fasttalkerchat

The two answers above and then this: Is there anything running at startup? run msconfig and see what's checked on the startup tab.


A more straight forward way of doing all of these fixes would be to reinstall the OS if possible. I'm guessing he has already lost all data.

Gamayun

yoyo wrote: »

Helpful responses only please. See the charter.

Apologies, I didn't address the question asked, I see that now. Duly noted.

fasttalkerchat

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

A more straight forward way of doing all of these fixes would be to reinstall the OS if possible. I'm guessing he has already lost all data.

Not necessarily. What often happens is that Windows starts using a temporary profile folder. The original data should still be in the Documents and Settings folder.

For example, lets say your username is John and your computer name is PC1. If the user profile fails to log on, it creates a new folder called John.PC1 and uses that instead. Or it uses a folder named TEMP. Your data is still inside the John folder.

Lovely Bloke

Gamayun wrote: »

If this is the case then I would recommend moving to a Linux OS, a light one such as Lubuntu would accomplish all of these no hassle and would less bloated than XP.

He could have VLC, Tranmission (equivalent to uTorrent) and some browsers up and running in no time.

That's assuming that it's an XP issue and not a hardware one...

Yep, installing Linux is a road I'm trying to get him to go down, he's open to it.

yoyo wrote: »

Helpful responses only please. See the charter.

Heh, thanks, but it was actually a solution I expected someone to stick in here

Karsini wrote: »

Not necessarily. What often happens is that Windows starts using a temporary profile folder. The original data should still be in the Documents and Settings folder.

For example, lets say your username is John and your computer name is PC1. If the user profile fails to log on, it creates a new folder called John.PC1 and uses that instead. Or it uses a folder named TEMP. Your data is still inside the John folder.

That's all cool, but all the data was wiped from an attached external HDD too, which is baffling.

I'll check all the things above, thanks for all responses.

I won't be back to his house until at least midweek, so any other ideas welcome.

Thanks

Torqay

gctest50 wrote: »

There's a few software tools exactly that - intended for use in internet cafes , schools etc.

My first though as well (DeepFreeze or some equivalent) but that usually does not include external drives.

Lovely Bloke

Oh yeah, it wasn't previously in a café

ASJ112

If we could get a better look at the machine it may help. Could you run DDS on the machine and post the logs from it

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/dds/

yoyo

TheNinthGate wrote: »

Yep, installing Linux is a road I'm trying to get him to go down, he's open to it.


Heh, thanks, but it was actually a solution I expected someone to stick in here

No worries, its just that these get a Mac, Linux, Android etc. type responses can cause flame wars starting especially when you didn't mention in the op the Linux route would be cool.
In fact for old machines there are some excellent easy to use distros that would be fine for his machine. Although saying that Windows shouldn't be doing that so there is obviously something not right with the current software/hardware causing issues

Nick