Hi, I'm trying to help a friend who has accidentally removed her user account from Windows XP. The problem is that she has lost all of her settings etc, but most importantly, she has lost her email contacts from outlook express. Is there any way to recover this data? I've found a few freeware data recovery applications, but i'm not sure where to begin other than that?? (I'm pretty sure she's using XP Home) Any help greatly appreciated.

How exactly did she remove her account? Perhaps it's not "Gone, gone." Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

There is no way you can "accidentially" delete user account. It takes six or so steps says this page. i_XpUser

Well, She didn't do it entirely by accident. She had some dodgy email from some spanish guy that she didn't want her husband to see. She couldn't seem to get rid of it, so my sister decided that it might be a good idea to delete the user account?!? Basically, my sister wants me to sort it out as the friend has lots of customer details etc stored in outlook express. I work on an IT helpdesk, but i've never seen anything this daft before, hence I've never had to fix this kind of thing... AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Abit NF7-S v2.0 Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb 1GB Crucial PC2700 80GB & 120GB SATA HDD's SB Audigy2 ZS Enermax Noisetaker 485W

So, again... How exactly did she delete her user account? Through System Profiles? Please provide some more detail, and we may be able to help. Life is more painless for those who are brainless.