Windows done did me wrong...need a little help

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:46 am

I was trying to get some of the wife's older software installed on her laptop .. Dell Vostro 3550, I5, 6 MB, win7 pro 64. So it looked like I needed to install xp mode and virtual mode. Went to MS, downloaded and installed both per the instruction from the MS web site - no apparent issues.

On reboot get the message "The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded." Only thing that I can do from there is reboot and get the same thing.

No image to restore to

. Guess I never turned that on. It will boot in safe mode, but I couldn't find anything useful that it would do. All I could do in the user setting was change the profile picture (whoopee!). Outside chance of a virus - ms security essentials turned off, won't restart - computer has barely been used but did copy over 13 mb of files from her old computer.

Tried booting up from win7 disk - and repair - it just asked me what the problem was, etc., and didn't get anywhere.

It won't be a huge loss to reinstall windows, but got quite a few hours in already installing programs and copying files. There is a dell restore partition showing as "D:" - but figured that would have the same effect as a clean install - although that would have the drivers, etc.

any thoughts welcomed!

TIA

John

Key Keeper · Post by **Key Keeper** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:02 am

You cant boot in safe mode and create a new profile under the administrator account?

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:25 am

how about the MS Sweeper utility?

http://www.pcabusers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51569

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:19 pm

If you are unable to access any administrator accounts, then you'll have to do a repair install which should keep much of what you have done intact.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:07 pm

Can't do anything with the admin accounts....when I tried the install repair it just gave me a limited number of actions none of which helped...will try the sweeper tonite.....I was hoping for a simple command prompt trick like

ysf*cked/C:, fixem/now

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 1:34 pm

Unfortunately, the extra security offered by Windows 7 also means that it's harder to fix this particular problem. There are ways to save it, but in the end they'd be harder than a re-install IMO.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:45 pm

I doubt Sweeper will help. Doesn't sound like a virus.

You can perform a repair install using a Win7 installer DVD (assuming you have one): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/34 ... stall.html

If you have to, use the factory recovery AFTER backing up her data by either using a BartPE disc or connecting the drive as a spare.

The Dell factory recovery can usually be accessed by pressing CTRL + F11 as soon as the Dell logo appears.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:08 pm

According to that article (one FP cited) You cannot do a repair install at boot or in Safe Mode.

Since I can't get in at boot, I guess it will be just use the dell restore function. All the files I copied are sitting on her old laptop, no point in copying what's on the new one - I'll just copy them from the old one again.

thanks all - I will try the sweeper thing on the off chance there was a virus in all that junk I copied -

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:32 pm

Yeah, the ONLY way to do a repair install is with the DVD. You basically perform an upgrade.

Trouble is they usually don't give you the DVD anymore unless you specifically ask for it.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:32 pm

system restore from the recovery console? i got lucky one time and was able to manually launch the system recovery to repair a non-booting machine.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:49 pm

I tried with the Dell install disk - very limited choices - I do have a regular oem disk that I will try - according to the article FP cited that is the only one that works - not a dell disk, etc.

ran scanner for what the heck, it's almost finished - we'll see if it found/fixed anything - probably a corrupt file though I did do a full chkdsk

hopefully something will work...if not I'll just do a clean install.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:09 pm

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/70 ... store.html

just to clarify, i was talking about a system restore, not a system recovery via the Dell OEM tools. scroll about half way down to see how to initiate the restore from a boot menu and not from within Windows.