My machine hiccupped yesterday and bailed out of a reboot. On the second reboot it checked the disk and fixed errors, then booted the OS normally. Once the OS loaded it informed me that it could not locate the Active Desktop file. I noticed my desktop was now free of the myriad of stuff I store on it, except for some program shortcuts for files I have installed (presumably because the registry told them to put them on the desktop). So links to registered programs are there, but all other files and folders are gone. I checked the c: drive and all data has vanished. All programs are still there, but all Documents and Settings files have been reset and all personal files and folders are gone. All Application Data has been wiped as well so no more emails, email account settings, bookmarks, address book, etc. A look at the c: drive properties reveals that the machine still sees the drive as being mostly full, so it's not as though this data has been erased - it's just not being pointed to anymore. Another clue: I run a Post-It Notes utility on my desktop. When it loaded, it populated my desktop with Post-It notes that I had originally had on the desktop in November of 2002. When I ran a Drive Indexing utility (diplaying the contents of the c: drive in a big text file) I noticed that all files and folders associated with the account are listed as having been created in November of 2002. I have a secondary Guest account on the same OS. That account appears to have been unaffected. There are documents still stored on its desktop from 2004 (probably the last time it was used). I run an OS on a separate partition of the same drive. That OS is completely unaffected. Any help would be much appreciated. I am absolutely stymied by this problem. It seems as though my account (and only my account) on this OS has suddenly gone back in time and will only believe in files, folders, and setting that existed prior to November 2002 (the system clock still reads today's date) It refuses to see any of the data that is obviously still there on the hard drive. Okay, that brings up one more thing: If I boot up the secondary OS on the d: partition and use it to look back at the affected c: partition, the data is still missing.

you profile might have been corrupted. windows then creates a new account with yoour name but using the 'all user' default settings. check the folder documents and settings on the system drive. your old account settings, desktop and documents are mostlikely still in there, just the folder has been renamed. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Go ahead & rebuild your profile and if there are programs remaining in limbo afterwards, reinstall them. The Secret Letter From Iraq

Yes, it's looking like a profile corruption issue. I think upon reboot after the hiccup, chkdsk dumped all of the misplaced data into the FOUND.000 directory and reset the profile to default settings and files (exactly as you said, mattie). Does anyone know how one would access the files in FOUND.000 to put them back? They are stored simply as large data fragments with no indexing or separation of individual files (basically just big boxes of disorganized stuff), so it's not like I can just root through there and pick stuff out. I've analyzed the contents with a recovery application, but I'm holding off on pulling the files I want out of there with the app and rebuilding my profile until I find out if there's a more elegant way of doing this.