Registry, user profiles, and a royal pain

Greetings,

I would appreciate any help/thoughts/opinions on an Windows error I have suffered.

I recently suffered what appears to be a 1517 error using XP SP2. I logged into my computer and received a message to the effect of:

"Windows has encountered an error in the registry, it has receovered your previous profile. "

I failed to write down the exact wording, but the login continued and resulted in a dekstop with only about half my usual shortcuts, my theme and background were gone, the menu had reverted to the Win95 style, and the start menu items were nearly all gone.

Looking in my file system, I noted a file.000 directory in c:, which tipped me to a possible HD error. Windows had created a new "user" in the "documents and settings folder" which was in the form "username.domainname". In searching for solutions, I found a registry tweak that I could use to redirect my login back to the original folder of documents away from the new one windows had generated in its "recovery".

Still, most of the "all users" install programs and files are not accessible through the start menu, but they are there if I go to them directly using explorer.

I have run antivirus scans, memtest+86, and chkdsk from the recovery console. Chkdsk did find and fix an error, but nothing has restored my user profile fully. I have also tried returning to several previously good recovery points using System Restore.

Further, some other random errors include:
1. I cannot change file settings in explorer windows (such as to allow showing of hidden files)
2. When I attach a USB device, the system recognizes it, but does not play the sound, and the context menu of "what do you want windows to do with this item" displays one item to choose from and then a few random ascii characters.

At this point, I accessed the admin tools interface, found the reference to the 1517 error.

More at microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...lG63POXgOZgqo5aGX6WBjpjGaFmY+FqQmg7sY2YY0hQ==

I tried installing UPHClean (http://blogs.technet.com/uphclean/) to fix the problem, but I am not even sure that is the intended use of UPHClean.

Is there anything else to try to recover the errors, or am I looking at a fresh install?

Is there any way to figure out more about the error (ie: which program might have caused it) and after beating it to a pulp of 1s and 0s, to avoid using it in the future?

Thanks!

 

Welcome to TSG....

How to recover the damaged user profile in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555473/en-us

 

Thanks, I did try that KB article as well. For some reason, when I try to select the user profile that was corrupted, the "copy to" dialog box does not become active for me to click on.

Something else beyond the profile being corrupt seems to be going on as well, given the USB issues and not being able to edit folder options. I just realized as well, that I cannot change any of the visual/performance settings either.

 

Do you have the recovery disk set or software for this computer?

 

I did, chkdsk found an error and fixed it, but that did not resolve the problem.