I can see the user profiles, but I can't access them!

I'm sure there is a very simple solution to this, but I'm not
very experienced with XP. It's my parents' computer, and
they've been having lots of weird problems, so I did a
full system recovery - reverting back to the factory settings.

When I first rebooted, instead of the "welcome" screen
offering different profiles, it didn't offer any options. When I
go into the file manager (Windows Explore), I can see the
folders with all their favorites, cookies, etc., but how can
I make the computer recognize them?

I am able to create new user profiles, and I tried looking at
where those folders were and moving the other files to the
same area on the computer, thinking if they were in the
same place, the computer would "see" them. Nothing.

I feel really stupid that I cannot figure this out, and I'd
appreciate any suggestions. My mom is freaking out without
all her bookmarks.

 

I definitely chose the option to save personal files, and I can see the files, so I know they still exist.

Right now, each user profile folder is under "My Documents." I can't be more specific right now, because I'm not at my parents' house. I can update this thread on Friday; that's when I'll be trying any suggestions made between now and then, too.

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the responses.

Sorry to be so late returning to this thread. My parents' 50th anniversary party was Saturday and I didn't have any time to sit down at the computer.

The path to the user folders is
c:/Documents and Settings/userprofile/

The profile folder contains subfolders like UserData, Favorites, Cookies, etc.

When I ran the system recovery and realized that their old userprofiles weren't showing up, I created a new userprofile, and that's the same path that leads to the new one.

I checked out the site on taking ownership of a file; all the settings for the old userprofiles appear to be exactly the same as the one on the newly created userprofile. But, I'm not in safe mode, so I'm going to sign off now and try that.

My parents didn't set up the different profiles themselves. The guy who installed their cable modem did.