Reinstalled Windows XP - Lost User Info

Hi,
I was helping a friend of mine who has Windows XP installed with many of his pictures in his "My Pictures" folder, plus other programs such as PictureIt, AdAware, etc.

Every time we tried to go down to the "Start" button, there was an hourglass instead of the mouse arrow and would not let us access the Start Button or anything on the taskbar.

We couldn't close down the computer because we couldn't open the Start menu and the only way we could shut it off was clicking Ctrl+Alt+Delete Key and Turn it OFF on the toolbar. When we did this we noticed several times that the "explorer.exe" was not responding.

We finally gave up trying to figure out what could be the problem so we decided to re-install Windows XP overwriting the present version of Windows XP. It seemed as though it was reloaded OK and when it came time to name the user, my friend didn't know what the original name was so we set the user to "George ".

Well, after all that, the Start Key still wasn't accessible. We had the hourglass only and couldn't click the Start Key.

We then decided to update his computer with Windows XP Service Pack 2, since I had received the CD in the mail to see if this would correct the problem. Well, in fact, it did. We now have a working Start Button.

But now we have another problem. When we named the "User George "
we lost all his desktop icons plus all his programs and files. I looked at the users listed in the control panel and there was one called "default ". I looked at the contents of default, through and noticed that all his pictures were on there. I created a new user account called "default" to see if I had the "default" account again, he would be able to access his files. It didn't work. Now I go back in User Accounts and I see George, default and default2 listed. I can't seem to be able to pull up "default" and have all his folders and files.

My question is, how can I get his "default" account to open up with all his programs, files and folders as he had before we re-installed Windows XP or did I lose them permanently.

Please help us. We are so frustrated.

Thank you.

Jean

 

Whoof - sounds like a mess at this point but possible to mostly fix if you don't do any more random things to it.

XP-home or XP-pro? The approach to making things work again will be different depending on the version.

 

The 0perating System is Windows XP Home.

Thanks.

 

This should work in your case.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151&Product=w

 

Thank you. We'll give your suggestion a try and post back with the results.

Jean

 

Reinstalled Windows XP - Lost User Info

Is it possible that the reinstall did not go into the pre-existing folder ?

If not then user info may well still be hanging around but the re-install in not using it.

If my wild thoughta are correct it most certainly is

BillyBob

PS.
Do not ask how I know and I will not have to lie.

BB

 

John,

Thanks a lot. The following site worked great and we were able to copy all his files in the new user infor and deleted the corrupted one.

Thanks again to all.

Jean