2018-11-07 00:57:37 (edited by CAE_Jones 2018-11-07 01:07:21)

My computer developed a boot problem a couple days ago, and I did not have a Windows installation disc to fix it, so took it to a PC repair place.
I can now only sign in as the user they created. I cannot find the user I was using anywhere. More perplexing, the documents folder for this user contains files from my documents (the user folder itself does not). The downloads folder contains only the games subfolder, which contains only the Swamp subfolder, which seems to have retained a random assortment of files. My desktop is mostly the same, but NVDA has vanished. Searching from the start screen does bring up NVDA addons, which should be in the downloads folder.
Oh, and filetype associations are broken, but that's not anywhere near as confusing as WTF happened to the user accounts.
1: how can I tell if my previous account still exists?
2: If it exists, how do I access it, as it's not showing up on the sign-in screen?
3: What the crap is going on with some files appearing and some not, and ... just what is up with this weird mixup?
4: Assuming all this is maximally disastrous, what is the best outcome and how do I bring it about? I do have backups, but because of reasons (like not being in the same place as my hd) they're a couple months out of date, and the online backups I made since then seem not to have stuck (insert grumbling about Dropbox here).
I am about to stop correcting it when braille screen inpcht droms a dot3. It took like _aj tries earlier to get an s to happen. -_-

Update: Running netplwiz, only the new account is showing up.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-07 01:10:11

check if windows.old is still there.

2018-11-07 01:37:06 (edited by CAE_Jones 2018-11-07 02:15:06)

Yes, it's there. The missing account still has a folder there, with pre-problem files seemingly intact.
[edit] Most subdirectories are missing from this folder, however. The files in the user/username directory seem to be there (I haven't checked thoroughly, but I'm not sure there's anything in there I don't have backed up elsewhere). Documents and downloads aren't there. I'm assuming it's just supposed to back up settings, and the rest was all included because top directory. Not schre how to proceed; if I try to roll back to last week, will that roll back to the corrchpted boot file that started this mess?

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-07 02:16:55

yes, it would go back to the mess that you've had. however, creating a media, rolling back, booting from, and reparing may actually work. also, windows.old should have all your files in tacked. if it does not, I'd be a little worried. though it's hard to tell, without knowing exactly what the technision did. this is win10, right?

2018-11-07 02:39:12

8, unless they installed 10 and this has still not revealed itself to me (figure I'd've noticed when looking at system settings, and there's no Cortana and I recall Narrator being better on 10 than it seems to be.)
The missing files seem to have mysteriously reappeared, and now I'm more confused as to how they were missing in the first place.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-07 12:14:58

so OK. I'm rather confused. I do want to help, but you confused me. so, let me try to clarify. was your PC upgraded to win10, then it failed to boot, so you then took it to a PC shop, and they then restored it using your manufacturer built in partition? or has it always been on win8? also, have all your files came back now?

2018-11-07 13:02:56

Always win 8. 10 doesn't come into the picture at all. I'm not sure if every file is accounted for, but when I last checked, it seemed like they were all back.

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-07 20:11:57

What happens if rename the user account to what it was previously? I should add that the previous account was linked to my microsoft account (it showed my MSN avatar and email address on the sign-in screen, which was kinda creepy tbh), and I've seen no indication that the new user is.
I'm also wondering if it's possible to roll things back in a more manual, piece-by-piece way? Ex, merging old\program files with the new, or copying in the various ntuser*.dat or whatever files? I'm not sure how likely this is to break things. Would it help if I could figure out precisely what got corrupted, and basically roll back everything else? Assuming it's something that can be isolated. Any ideas how I'd go about finding it, other than moving things by hand until something breaks?

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-08 13:52:38

before anything, it would be helpful to know what the IT technition has done on your PC. personally, copying back your appdata, and reinstalling all your programs, assuming your files are all there, would more or less get you back on track. things can't corrupt in appdata up to the point where windows refuses to boot, since apdata is a part of your user account, which only loads upon  logging in, in other words, has nothing to do with the boot process.

2018-11-09 17:10:34

So I tried to copy everything out of windows.old so it wouldn't disappear if the problem couldn't be resolved in its typical lifetime.
The program files folders disappeared while copying.
They're literally just gone. Neither explorer nor cmd is showing them as existing. They existed an hour ago.
Explorer is also reporting that the copied users folder is 6.22tb, which is ... obviously wrong. The C drive as a whole contained less than 130mb before all this crap.
Is... Is this supposed to happen?

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2018-11-09 19:44:30

honestly? none of that should be happening. you could try unchecking the check box to hide hidden files, you'll find it in the treeview under advanced settings, in the view tab. see if that brings them back. if not, there might be some more serious issues.

2018-11-10 14:42:57

do a mallware /anti vyrus scan right away. also do a sfc /scannow command.
please backup dox first before trying. windows is not supposed to show you wrong drive space info on your own built in drive.

There's a place for me in this universe.

2018-11-10 14:43:31

the other advice i can give you is to recreate a local account with admin rights and selvage files from that account. and pull them over.

There's a place for me in this universe.