Entire User File Folder Randomly Wiped

[AltaVolante]

Hello all,

I'll start off with my system specs:

-Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

-Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe 

-Core i7-2600k @ 4.8 GHz

-GTX 1070 @ 1518 MHz boost 1708 MHz

-SanDisk SSD 128GB Boot Drive

-WD Blue 2TB Storage HDD

-8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3

-Corsair CX550M PSU

 

I've been having an issue in which the computer will boot normally, however upon logging in, the system will load a temporary user account. I was able to solve the issue the first time by making changed in regedit deleting the temporary user profile and redirecting the profile image path to the correct user file folder. However, this happened a second time, but this time I had discovered that my entire user file folder (i.e. C:/users/"my name") was empty. This resulted in the loss of all my documents and save files. I attempted to recover the contents of my user file by running "Recova" but it was not able to restore the contents. As you can imagine, this was incredibly frustrating, and I have not been able to locate any information as to why this happened, and how to prevent it in the future.

Thank you for any help!

[Zando_]

Virus?

[Enderman]

Run crystaldiskinfo to check your drives for problems.

[AltaVolante]

I've run several scans with Malwarebytes, but nothing has come up

 

[AltaVolante]

crystaldiskinfo doesn't display any issues with either storage drives

[Irishred]

Open a command prompt, type "whoami" without quotes, and hit enter. Does the username end with ".temp"? If so, you might not have access to your original user folder because you're technically a different user.

[AltaVolante]

Irishred,

My original user folder was wiped clean, nothing left. Could this be a sign of a failing SSD?

[Irishred]

Sorry for the delayed response. I'd suggest downloading Sandisk SSD Dashboard to check the drive's health and other statistics. If the drive is healthy, the data loss may have been from a troubleshooting step taken for the initial issue. Since your repairs involved modifying registry entries, it's possible that the wrong SID was changed and allowed for your user profile to be overwritten the next time you signed in.

[Guest]

Could be a failing drive or a bug with the OS. Since you have already lost most of your data it's probably worth doing a complete reinstall of the OS and see if the problem persists in the future.

 

I also recommend buying an external storage (USB) solution and back up your important data in the future. This is always important as you never know what could happen, storage devices sometimes fail suddenly.