Windows user profiles are designed to store a user's data and environmental settings while compartmentalizing and securing information technology confronting other users on the same system. This is done to simplify the user experience and maintain the customization of each user's workspace and ensure that information belonging to i user is inaccessible to anyone else save for that person.

But existence role of the underlying organisation itself, it is no less prone to corruption, which can atomic number 82 to data loss. This type of corruption is common since users interact with their desktop settings each time they log in until the moment they log out. The slightest issue could decadent a system file used by the contour itself, more specifically, the portion of the contour that gets merged with the registry and acts every bit a table of contents for each user's personal profile.

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Most abuse will still let users to access their data to some degree, but when the loss is catastrophic, all of the information that was stored in the affected profile is now removed from the arrangement at once. Luckily for users, it isn't permanently lost–virtually of the time–just moved and stored in a hidden directory elsewhere until it is retrieved or purged. Knowing where to look allows Information technology the opportunity to recover lost data as you lot'll see below.

10 steps to data recovery

  1. Log off of any accounts on the system or reboot, if possible, to ensure that any threads are closed and any file locks are cleared from resident retention.
  2. Log in to the organization with an admin-level account and 1 that is non linked to the business relationship(s) experiencing data loss.
  3. Go to Control Panel | File Explorer Options, and a new window will open. From in that location, select the View tab, and select the radio push button next to Evidence hidden files, folders, and drivers. Too, scroll down and uncheck the box next to Hide protected operating organization files. Click OK to save the changes.
  4. With subconscious files now disabled, search the root of the system drive (usually C:\) for a directory titled "Found.000". The prefix "found" will be included, yet, depending on how many user accounts are afflicted by this abuse, the suffix ".000" may include other numbers or variations thereof. Note: I wholly recommend using WinDirStat, an open source utility, to map the bulldoze'due south contents and suspension it downward past occupied infinite, including the power to search by file type. It makes the process of locating whatever data on a drive much simpler.
  5. By double-clicking these folders, it should reveal the contents of a user's profile folders, including common directories such every bit Photos, Documents, and Desktop, for case. These are the complete profiles for users afflicted by the abuse including all settings and configurations for applications.
  6. Information technology is best do to not move these files, but rather copy them to another location such equally an external hard drive or network share. Keep in listen when copying to use a utility such equally robocopy (which is built into Windows) that provides logging capability, including enumeration of files/folders and their respective file sizes to exist able to compare to the source. This will ensure that all data is copied completely.
  7. Repeat steps 5-half-dozen for each found directory until they've all been recovered.
  8. After successfully copying over the lost data, get to Command Panel | System, and click on the Advanced Organisation Settings link to open those properties. Click on the Avant-garde tab and click on the Settings… push nether the User Profiles section.
  9. This will open the user profiles window where the admin tin can delete whatever of the affected user profiles, immigration out the link to the profiles in the registry. Reboot the computer, once all corrupt profiles accept been deleted.
  10. Upon reboot, have each of the affected users log back in to recreate their contour from scratch and have each one log dorsum out. One time these profiles are created over again, the admin may log back in and brainstorm the procedure of restoring each user's information dorsum to their newly created profiles, or simply provide them links to their data's location on a network share allowing them to download their content again.

Do note that while contempo versions of Windows have made strides in allowing users to recover lost/corrupted data from a system, this information is presented to offer some other method for user data recovery in the event that a proper dorsum up does not be or is not working. This method is still non an verbal scientific discipline though. Bearing that in mind, any recovery method is always second to a current back up of your information. Amend yet, have two–in case the first support isn't reliable.