Why is my life like a Dilbert punchline?

August 20, 2005 3:51 AM

My computer has magically disappeared my user profile. I miss my bookmarks.

I'm using Windows XP. This is the error I get:

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


Okay, so how is that supposed to be helpful? I mean, I'm my own network administrator. The first sentence is the only one that has anything not vague to say. I'll stop whining. Anyway, there's more:

DETAIL - An I/O operation initiated by the registry failed unrecoverably. The registry could not read in, or write out, or flush, one of the files that contain the image of the registry.

Does anyone know how I can restore my settings? I'd be happy to reimport my start list and bookmarks to a new profile, but I don't know how to do that. My browser is Firefox and I can't reinstall because the version of Windows I'm operating off of is from 2003. I'm using a "temporary profile" right now, and I'm actually having to TYPE MY OWN PASSWORDS. How am I supposed to read the NYT like this?

posted by saysthis to computers & internet (5 comments total)

How am I supposed to read the NYT like this?
Bug Me Not!
posted by koenie at 5:08 AM on August 20, 2005

A good starting point might be using the System Restore feature to restore your computer to an earlier time (the registry will revert, but not any files you've created or downloaded).

To activate, click Start>Run and type in "msconfig". When MSConfig opens, clikc "Launch System Restore" and follow the instructions from there to restore your computer to a time before the registry error.
posted by awesomebrad at 10:35 AM on August 20, 2005

saysthis, my answer is only going to be helpful in the broadest sense since I don't have specific details for you.

I ran into this exact problem recently with one a client's computer. It was very frustrating because there didn't seem to be much info on how to fix the problem. Eventually my 20th (or so) google search yielded an answer from Microsoft's web site that amounted to "yeah, this is fucked -- sorry" and gave instructions on how to create a new profile that didn't disappear. Keep googling. You may find a better answer.

(If you can't find any answer, e-mail me, and I'll swing by the ciient's office on Monday to find my notes on the problem.)
posted by jdroth at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2005

Your profile and all its settings and customizations is stored in c:\documents and settings\ (I don't think system restore touches this, but I'm no 100% sure).

The VERY FIRST thing you should do is copy the entire folder corresponding to your name elsewhere, so that you have a copy of all your files and settings, etc. In fact, everything you'll be doing should be with admin rights, so whatever temp user you're using should have admin rights on this machine.

Especially when dealing with profiles, you'll always want to start by backing up the profile in its current state, as the login process itself could overwrite/change that profile irrevocably. Do that now if you haven't already. Seriously. Back up that folder before you do anything else. :)

Now, if there isn't a folder there for your name, you're basically fucked. But I suspect that isn't the case, since you've had to log in as a different temp user to get a desktop screen. If the folder was missing, Windows would have created a fresh one in its place, and you'd not have seen the error (but had a blank desktop with all default settings! So it's good you're seeing this error, in a way... =) )

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Now, there's three things that likely have gone wrong. You shouldn't be harmed by following any of these, ESPECIALLY if you backed up the whole "saysthis" folder in c:\documents and settings earlier. You DID do that, right? :)

1) Profile folder is NTFS-secured and inaccessible
It's possible the profile folder has, somehow, been set with NTFS security that doesn't let you load it up. If you can't open your profile folder, you can't load your profile and settings, and you'll get an error saying as such (note the error you get suggests that permissions might be part of the problem).

But you'll discover if this is the case while backing up the folder above: if you right click your profile folder in c:\documents and settings, and view Properties -> Security, you can see if your "saysthis" account (or whatever it is called) has permissions to open this folder. If it doesn't, then NTFS permissions would need to be reset granting your original user account permissions to open and write to this folder.

The rights you see listed should be at least Administrators, CREATOR OWNER (which in this case should be your original account), and SYSTEM having full control. If CREATOR OWNER isn't there, or even if it is, it won't harm anything to add your "saysthis" account to the list of permissions here with full control, provided you don't remove anything already in the list. If you do this, you'll need to also click "Advanced" and check the box saying to Replace permissions on all child objects.

Of particular interest in terms of permissions is the file NTUSER.DAT- if THAT file is restricted and you can't open that, you'll get this error as well. You may want to check the NTFS permissions on this file explicitly to be sure.

If you've fixed/changed the NTFS permissions on the folder/file because that seemed broken, try logging off and logging back in as your old user. If it works, yay, if it doesn't, drats. Go on to the next suggestion. :)

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2) NTUSER.DAT file is corrupt or secured as a registry file
The rest of your files in that folder are probably fine, but for each user their own registry and settings are stored in that NTUSER.DAT file inside their profile folder. This controls lots of personalized settings including saved passwords and desktop look, etc.

If you get an error loading your profile, it could be because this file is corrupt (which would be sad, but not totally awful and life-ending), or simply that the file doesn't have registry permissions on that file (different than NTFS file permissions).

To determine this, open regedit at the Start -> Run line, and in regedit highlight the HKEY_USERS key. Then, click on File -> Load Hive, browse to c:\documents and settings\saysthis, and click on the NTUSER.DAT file. When it asks you the KeyName, give it something like "MYOLDPROFILE" or something similarly meaningful.

Incidentally, if the ntuser.dat won't even load, giving an error that it is corrupt- well, then lemme know, because you can get back most of your profile anyway such as bookmarks, etc, but will probably have to re-do some customized settings.

Once that hive has been loaded, highlight the "MYOLDPROFILE" branch and click on Edit -> Permissions. What you see should be similar to the Security tab on the profiles folder, but a key difference is that the permissions here are in the registry hive itself, NOT in the file system.

In particular, you should see Administrators, "saysthis", and SYSTEM each as having full control and Read. If your user account AND system are not both listed, or given full control, then this has to be rectified. You can add your permissions in here, making sure your main user account can read this key, as well as SYSTEM. Both have to be able to read the registry and load this hive for your profile to load successfully. When you're done, unload the hive by highlighting the "MYOLDPROFILE" key and choosing "Unload hive" from the File menu.

If you couldn't load the registry at all, then you'll need to do some custom steps I can give you later to get back everything else but the registry cleanly. If you could, and had to reset the permissions, exit out of regedit and try logging off/logging in as your main user account.

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3) ProfileListPath corruption
The last, and probably least likely, possibility is that the main registry got corrupted and says that your profile is located at a path that doesn't exist.

If you open regedit, browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> MICROSOFT -> Windows NT -> CurrentVersion -> ProfileList, you'll see a bunch of SID values. Look at the ones that end with -1000 level entries. Each of this will, when you highlight them, display a ProfileImagePath on the right side such as "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\saysthis". The path kind of suggests who the profile belongs to.

If you see one that seems to correspond to your profile, but the path isn't quite correct, then Windows has had this path corrupted. It believes it's supposed to load an existing profile, but then can't find it, displaying the error you see. In this case, the fix is simple- make the path be correct. :) However, the fact that you're getting an I/O or security error makes me think this isn't really the problem. Just mentioning it more for the other people who read this and might have similar problems down the road.

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Anyway those are 3 suggestions. My guess is the permissions on the file NTUSER.DAT, or its registry permissions, are the culprit. Alternately, the file itself is corrupt and unrecoverable. In that case, there's an easy way to migrate your entire profile including files, bookmarks, firefox, etc, rather easy, although there will be work involved in getting some of the settings back once you do this.

I'll check back later, or just email me, if you want more help.
posted by hincandenza at 3:39 PM on August 20, 2005

Well, that was certainly time well spent on my part. Here, maybe you wanted this instead?

"Uh, just flatten and reinstall. Okay?"
posted by hincandenza at 4:13 PM on August 21, 2005