BleepingComputer.com: Windows Can Not Load The Locally Stored Profile

Is my computer dead??

After doing a normal clean up session (Ad-AwareSE, Spybot S+D, AVG, CCleaner & defrag), i rebooted my pc and got these messages appear on the blue windows screen;

"windows can not load the locally stored profile. Possible causes for this include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. If the problem persists, contact your network administrator."

Followed by

"Windows can not find local profile and is logging on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off."

Now, considering i'm supposed to be the network admin (rofl) i'm kinda stuffed

i'm not sure what is or isn't working anymore, everything slow and all my data is locked away somewhere that i can't get to. It's taken me since last night to get firefox running again to log on here.
I also took a day off because i couldn't face yet more pc related stress levels at the moment. Life has enough of those as is.

Any suggestions most welcome (i'm close to reformatting the lot)

Oh yeah, and it keeps running scandisc when booting too

This post has been edited by Hacked0ff: 05 April 2007 - 01:04 PM

Try using System Restore back to a date before your clean-up session.

Will try it now but i think the files are corrupt

Well, i'm back.

Tried the restore option and had nothing but a black screen and the mouse visible.
Left it for 13 hours to see if it was just being slow but have ended up having to use my master disc to reinstall my c: drive. Now my hard drive is messier than ever

Is there a way to locate and isolate/replace corrupted files? Or shall i just reformat d:

I've now got a data drive full of old usernames with empty files that i don't really want to just delete (though tempted) and I've resigned myself to the fact that i'm probably going to lose all the data anyway (it's still in there somewhere @ the moment) although some bits can be accessed.

You could try using the system file checker.

How to Use SFC.EXE to Repair System Files

You could also use a boot disk such as the UBCD to copy any important data off the drive.

All clear on the SFC.EXE, so that means my windows is fine (i guess).

Everything else must be my data. I know there's something not right in there but that's a different forum i assume. Looks like the profile's gone for good.

Thanks for your help Budapest.

Can close this thread if there's nothing else you think i may need to know (i am a bit of a noob)

Time to browse around

This post has been edited by Hacked0ff: 06 April 2007 - 07:56 AM

Putting my main question at the top instead of hiding it at the bottom.....
Can I get help with the system restore (ie what am I doing wrong??) or should I just persue the consensus recommendation (ie redoing of the user profile)??

Hacked0ff, on Apr 5 2007, 12:59 PM, said:

Laptop Gateway, [XPmediacenteredition2002 servicepack2 Norton Internet Security Spy Sweeper] with the same problem. The exception is no clean up session HackedOff did in post#1 -- just normal use and shutdown. Then the next time used, encountered the problem reported here by HackedOff.

Tried a system restore as suggested in post#2, but it doesn't work. After reboot and getting assigned the temporary profile, a 'system restore' box/window comes up and says Restoration Incomplete Your system cannot be restored to: date System Checkpoint. Tried several of the bolded dates in May it's the same every time.

I've google searched "locally stored profile" and the consensus explanation/fix is along the line of the following......
This is typically a corrupt user profile. It can happen if a hard disk is failing or if the PC was not shut down properly. I recommend running chkdsk first and also check the drive for other symptoms of possible failure.
Usually the problem cannot be fixed quickly, and the process would be to log on as a different user with admin rights, rename the bad profile folder, then log in again as the user. Windows should create a new blank profile. Then import desktop icons, favorites, documents and settings, etc. to the new profile.
Also the consensus points to....
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811151

Made a new profile and tried logging into it, but it seems hung on the Welcome
username Applying your personal settings.

Update. Was going to try something in safe mode, but instead chose NO and went with the restore system option and the system restore worked successfully this time. I'm helping out a relative so I'm not sure this is the case, but the computer seems slow now. Before the system restore, there were things that were definitely slow. Would the slowness point at anything in particular in this special case (hard drive going bad??? as suggested in some of the search/fixes for "Windows cannot load the locally stored profile"), or should I just point my relative to the suggestions/tutorials for slow computers here at bleepingcomputer.

Have you scanned for viruses/malware? I'd suggest one of these free, online scans to make sure it's not an infection causing this:
Be advised that some of these scanners will pickup things in "quarantine" from other anti-virus programs - so review the results carefully:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner Scan Only - no removal
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
http://onlinescan.avast.com/
http://ca.com/us/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

<links compiled on 02/14/2008>

I experienced this problem on the network at work. At times the fix is a simple re-start but on one computer i had to call the Network Admin. I was not able to access the applications from a server as well. When I ping the remote server it would show the request timing out after my local area network. We did a trace route on a PC accessing all the applications, the problem we saw was the default gateway. He changed it to the one on the next computer and voila, it worked again. I'm not sure if it entails the same on a standalone PC.

I got this error before. I ended up running a repair on XP. But that's not your real problem I believe that you have a hard drive that is on the fritz. I would boot into safe mode and open a command prompt and run

chkdsk C: /r

This will check all the bad sectors of the hard drive and fix them if it can.

Another program every network admin should have in his box of tools is SpinRite 6.0. This program goes where the operating system can't and fix the bad sectors of the drive and good sectors as well. I use it anytime that I can't boot up because some file is missing/corrupt, when I get a BSOD, or slow system performance. The program is 80 bucks for a home license but if you order 3 your set for any computer on your company network. It pays for itself the first time you use it.

Good Luck,
uByte