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49 Comments

  1. Khamali Perry
    October 11, 2019 @ 2:52 am

    Awesome guide, was very easy to understand and follow. I have only one issue, the last step. I attempted multiple times to copy the 4 files NTUSER.DAT, ntuser.dat.LOG1, ntuser.dat.LOG2 and lastly ntuser.ini but the files were in use. I also used programs like teracopy and the built in robocopy feature in CMD/Powershell but to no avail. Is there a fix for this?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      October 11, 2019 @ 10:07 am

      You have to sign out from all accounts. Restart the PC and login as Administrator to copy the files.

      Reply

      • Abdo
        March 30, 2020 @ 7:14 pm

        I restarted my pc and logged in as administrator and I tried to copy the files and still can't copy them

        Reply

        • Abdo
          March 30, 2020 @ 7:19 pm

          not all of them just (ntuser.dat.LOG1)

          Reply

          • Tanya
            December 29, 2022 @ 2:22 am

            Did you find any fix for this? I’m stuck at the same problem.

        • Lakonst2013
          May 14, 2020 @ 12:06 pm

          Probably your hard drive is damaged.

          Reply

  2. networker
    October 20, 2019 @ 6:14 am

    That was AWESOME!!! Thanks so much for this article! I was redoing the default profile on a windows 10 pc to and decided to delete my domain's user profile to test if the changes were applied. This used to work just fine in windows 7. Upon trying to login again the dreaded "we can't sign you in" came up. Shot through at least 20 other articles with all sorts of suggestions. Turns out you also need to delete the registry key in addition to delete the profile.

    Reply

  3. Sahar AbdusSabur
    October 24, 2019 @ 11:45 pm

    I found the first file but the file for step #11, I could not find another file that contained my account name. Under profilelist each s folder contains one profile connected to the computer. Once I deleted the folder that held my name, I found no other files similar in that set of folders. In the step where you copy files from the c drive. I could not find a ntuser.ini file anywhere. I even did a c drive search for it. Any suggestions?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      October 25, 2019 @ 9:16 am

      1. Restart your PC and login as Administrator.
      2. Create an new user account and set him as administrator, by following one of these methods in this article.
      3. Restart the PC again and login to the new account.
      4. Navigate to C:\Users folder and locate the user folder which contains your files.
      5. Finally, transfer the files to the new account.

      Reply

  4. Jayden Kemara
    December 13, 2019 @ 5:00 pm

    This guide works, thx. Theres one more step not mentioned and thats the Username.ComputerName profile do not exist on its own – its recreated profile, to create this one you have login to your corrupted account after you delete record in profileList, so after Step 9 restart computer try login to you account that will create new profile Username.ComputerName then restart and continue with Step 10

    Reply

    • Tahrin Jahan
      May 9, 2020 @ 6:59 pm

      I restarted but now computer is stuck on a black screen and not starting. What do i do?

      Reply

    • Claire
      June 10, 2022 @ 5:23 pm

      Thank you so much for the guide, I was so confused in that step. And to anyone who get the black screen, just press Windows Icon on your keyboard and the taskbar should show.

      Reply

  5. Mmd
    January 18, 2020 @ 12:03 pm

    Tnx alot that worked

    Reply

  6. Georgina H
    February 12, 2020 @ 4:34 pm

    Awesome, thank you! I backed up the old profile directories I needed then just deleted both keys for that id. Worked great for a problem which was extremely frustrating.

    Reply

  7. Rich
    March 15, 2020 @ 4:31 am

    Can not find the .INI file. The other 3 were there and I was able to copy/paste into my user name folder

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      March 15, 2020 @ 12:14 pm

      Skip the .INI file and continue at the rest steps.

      Reply

  8. sushanta chakraborty
    April 2, 2020 @ 4:06 pm

    I did that same and mu pc screen got blank and black nothing is working,,,, help me

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      May 14, 2020 @ 12:06 pm

      Hold down the SHIFT key and then click Power > Shutdown. Then power on the PC again and see if the problem has resolved.

      Reply

  9. Binyamin Kessler
    April 11, 2020 @ 8:26 pm

    Hello
    By mistake I deleted the folder S-1-5-21-xxx…" after changing to the user name, (step 11)
    are there any hope?
    Thank You

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      April 12, 2020 @ 9:53 am

      Try to repeat the procedure…

      Reply

  10. Vincentius Tanubrata
    April 13, 2020 @ 4:24 pm

    Hello, i follow all your step but at the last step when i go back to my accout, its all blank.. there are no icons or task bar, do you know what happen?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      May 14, 2020 @ 11:07 am

      Hold down the SHIFT key and then click Power > Shutdown. Then power on the PC again and see if the problem has resolved.

      Reply

  11. Sanna
    April 23, 2020 @ 11:27 am

    Will this recover all files.
    I am getting this issue kindly help me to solve this.

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      April 23, 2020 @ 2:56 pm

      YES. 1. Enable the Administrator account. 2. Login with the Administrator Account 3. Explore the C:\Users folder to find your files…

      Reply

      • Sanna
        April 24, 2020 @ 7:39 am

        Thank you so much. I found but couldn't found my database software on which I've to work

        Reply

  12. Tahrin Jahan
    May 9, 2020 @ 7:34 pm

    Awesome i got everything back but i can't sign back in to my Microsoft account. If i try a dialogue box comes up that says, "Something Went Wrong". How can i fix this?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      May 11, 2020 @ 2:58 pm

      Remove and re-add your MS account

      Reply

  13. Samyak Nagori
    May 26, 2020 @ 11:03 am

    hello, by mistake I deleted the user with my computer name. what to do now?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      May 28, 2020 @ 9:41 am

      Restart your PC sign out from the Administrator account and try to login to your old account. Normally you will not be able to connect and you will receive the message "We can't sign into your account…". After that, login again with the Administrator account and follow the steps in the tutorial.

      Reply

      • Curious
        July 25, 2020 @ 2:11 pm

        Hi what if after I signed in to my old account i didn't get the "we can't sign in" message, is it still okay??

        Reply

        • Lakonst2013
          July 29, 2020 @ 9:12 am

          OF course its OK. This means that the problem has solved.

          Reply

  14. Ef
    June 4, 2020 @ 5:40 am

    Awesome! Thank you for this! It worked for me!

    Reply

  15. Allan
    May 16, 2021 @ 3:20 pm

    Damn,thanks for this hint.Spent almost the whole day trying to figure out how to resolve this.U have saved me alot.Thanks big man

    Reply

  16. Xeinna Bañes Sanduco
    May 16, 2021 @ 6:35 pm

    Yey!!!! It worked 💞💞 Thank you so much.. just repeated the entire process since the 1st time i did i wasnt the administrator and at the second time.. i skipped the restart… And continue till step 16 😆😆

    I have blackscreen but have its cursor.. so… I just Ctrl+Alt+delete and choose sign out… And doneeee.. and thank you so much 💞💞

    Reply

  17. RA
    June 30, 2021 @ 5:56 pm

    Whoever wrote this article should let themselves be known. If I ever win the lottery I am buying you a Ferrari. This was clear and worked first time. I've been battling this issue for almost a year and was about to give up. Now I am sorted and my laptop is finally updated too. Can I delete the temp user profiles that were created by this issue somehow?

    Reply

  18. KP
    May 6, 2022 @ 4:03 pm

    Would caution that, while you are saving almost all the user's data this way, you will still see loss. While most are like commonly opened files (MUI), the big one is that you will loose the registry entries for applications installed per-user. While most environments try to avoid this, many recent installations are practically force per-user. (MS Teams, Adobe Cloud based applications… Acrobat DC that is subscription based, as examples. This will likely make those still installed programs up in the AppData folders, fail to run and possibly have difficulty reinstalling.

    Reply

  19. ND
    May 18, 2022 @ 8:19 pm

    Thank you it worked for me!!

    Reply

  20. Claire
    June 10, 2022 @ 5:18 pm

    Thank you so much for this. I tried various other solutions but only this helps! Although, I cannot find the .ini file so I skipped copy paste it in the last step. Will it cause any harm?

    Reply

  21. Janko
    October 26, 2022 @ 9:58 am

    There are only two S-1-5-21-xxx… files for me and I deleted the one that had my username in its value. The other S-1-5-21-xxx… file didn't have *my username.HP*. It had something similar (C:/Users/TEM). What should I do?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      October 27, 2022 @ 8:44 am

      Nothing….

      Reply

  22. Victor Lilley
    November 25, 2022 @ 1:42 pm

    Correction to my comment. I missed a quote mark after (e.g. from "C:\Users\John.HP").
    Plus there is also a folder TEMP.

    Sorry for the errors.

    Also, I tried installing the second printer again by diconnecting the USB to the computer and plugging it back in again and this has caused my first printer to come back again

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      November 25, 2022 @ 5:55 pm

      Copy the files mentioned from the "C:\Users\Admin" folder

      Reply

      • Victor Lilley
        November 29, 2022 @ 11:34 am

        Thank you. There is only NTUSER DAT there.

        Reply

        • Lakonst2013
          November 29, 2022 @ 7:20 pm

          Copy only it and continue to next step.

          Reply

  23. Victor Lilley
    November 29, 2022 @ 12:20 pm

    I can't get to command prompt because the search box is not working and I have windows power shell instead. I cannot change this to command prompt via a right click on start and then settings because clicking setting produces nothing. Left click on start doesn't work. Would you please explain how to do this via windows power shell from a right click on start?

    Reply

    • Lakonst2013
      November 29, 2022 @ 7:23 pm

      No problem. Open PowerShell as Admin and run the commands.

      Reply

  24. Joe
    March 26, 2023 @ 12:17 am

    It worked great. Thanks very much for the post. And thanks to Jayden Kemara for pointing out the crucial missing step! I have a question. This procedure leaves a folder called c:\users\John.HP (using the same example names as the post), but no associated user because we changed the profile list to eliminate it. Is it safe to remove that folder?

    Reply

  25. Scotticus
    June 7, 2023 @ 10:29 pm

    This worked for me and all we had to do was delete registry keys mentioned in steps 7,8,9 and then rebooted. Thank you

    Reply

  26. Omar
    September 4, 2023 @ 7:37 am

    Thanks for the great solution! unfortunately I am unable to do step 15 because when I try to replace the files it says "The action can't be completed because the file is open in system Close the file and try again.
    Any suggestions?

    Reply

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