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View Full Version : A Pitiful Call for Help! Vanished User Account?


drdoug26
10-15-01, 07:16 PM
Hi All:

My Sister just brought me over her laptop (Older WinBook XL2 + Win2Kprof) which was networked to another computer in her office. She told me her assistant was fooling around with the
‘Privileges’ for the account “medina”, which contained all her important office stuff. She stated that all the assistant tried to do was assign administrator privileges to this account.

When she restarted the computer her entire Office was gone! The boot up went as normal. She then logged on to the ‘medina desktop’ with the usual blank password. When the desk top for the medina account loaded up, everything was gone!!!! It was like a brand new accounts desk top, with that horrid “getting started with windows 2000” tutorial opening first. She panicked to the point of tears and brought the problem to me.

When I went into ‘local users’ there was the account “medina” but when I checked the “Members of” tab it only listed “Guest”??? (I had originally set this ‘Medina’ account up with administrative privileges). All of her documents, book marks, mail, quicken accounts, etc are gone with out a trace.

The lap top looks as if someone has just done a fresh install of windows 2000. Office 2000 prof is the only program still remaining.

I’m stumped, and she is desperate. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. She can not afford for me to try Microsoft’s $250.00/ incident tech support.

Thanks in advance

Doug
drdoug@speakeasy.net

turd
10-15-01, 08:52 PM
have you tried/can you log on as administrator ---if so do it and check the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Medina look at the other folders in there(Documents and Settings)... see what you have ... just a 1st step

drdoug26
10-15-01, 09:27 PM
Thanks for the reply!
I have logged on as administrator and browsed documents and settings. Still nothing there. I checked all three accounts for any sign of the missing stuff. Nothing there. The Useres there are:
Administrator, Default User, and medina. The old medina is still missing/dead/at large!!

Doug

Oni
10-15-01, 10:04 PM
I would imagine that the person who wanted to give your sister Admin privilages nuked her original account, then created an account w/ the same name, thinking that it would give her admin priviladges. Win2k doesn't work like that. Sure, it shows a name, but what is really doing the work is the SID (Security IDentifier). The SID makes sure that things like that don't happen.

You can't get that old profile back, and everything that she had previously is lost. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news.

Kind of a ****ty welcome to our forums, ne?

turd
10-15-01, 10:11 PM
Logon as an Administrator
Start the System Control Panel Applet (Start - Settings - Control Panel - System)
Click the User Profiles tab
You will see a list of all the profiles stored on the machine.
I believe that this is it, if you only see the one Medina and Administrator and you dont have a back up then I think you have lost it, somehow, if you see more then those two profiles check them out, also make sure that if you are pokeing around in documents and settings folder that your view folder options are set to show hidden files and folders. Also check your recyclebin under admin and see what is in there, if a profile was deleted by accident and recreated the old profile will be in the recycle folder, unless purged. Good luck, but without a copy or backup you are out of luck, but let us know I would like hear of successes and how.

drdoug26
10-15-01, 11:43 PM
Thanks for the replies. I've also posted this in the AU forum
and the consensus seems to be that she Killed the account
somehow.

There is a back-up from July so its not a total loss.

I'll post the results if anyone solves this mystery.

Doug