well, here's the story, I was using my computer and then someone pulled the power chord by mistake and my comp turned off. I said oh well, and I tried to restart the computer, it's fine and then when the windows loading screen with the logo is half way done(relatively) it gives me the blue screen. I say fine, lets just restart, it gives me the same everytime. Now I was going to go to safemode with command prompt, but I accidentally went into Directory Services restore mode, i was going to shut it off but it went through chkdsk, and I thought, hey this isn't so bad, I've never been in the mode before but it seems to be fixing the problem. Voila windows opens without a bluescreen, and my comp is working....BUUT(big but here) i've lost my workspace, I don't have my desktop and my documents are all missing! I thought it deleted them, but when I chk the drive space, C: still is full. I assumed that the data is still there and all I had to do was go to C:/docs and setting/me/my docs/ STUFF ! but no, there was nothing there. I tried restarting again, but now I'm taken to this wierd nexus everytime, the environment works fine, but I can't access any of my firles, I did a full search, and I still can't get my files, I did however find a lot of data I thought I deleted. Anyways, is there anyway to get out of this workspace environment and get back into my old one? if not is there a way I can recover the data that's (looks like it's ) still there? thank you very much.
Directory Services Restore Mode.....
- Thread starter omski2k4
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Vigilante
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What version of Windows are you running?
It almost sounds like you are running under a different user account somehow.
If you go into Control Panel to the users section, do you see your user account and any others?
If you click the start button (so the menu opens), do you see the correct user name at the very top?
For example if your username was "george" and now it says "default" or something, then you are in the wrong user. Try to log in with your old user name. If you click Start and Log Off, try to log back in with your old user.
What folders DO you have in Documents and Settings? You should have a folder for your user in there, can you open the folder? Or does is not exist?
If the folder IS there but you can't open it because it's "access denied", then you are logged in the wrong user. Your old account was probably password protected and that's why you can't see the files or search for them.
It's hard to tell what could be wrong without sitting in front of it. But in any case, check out the user account options.
It sounds like you might be in a domain, and it's possible your files were stored on the server maybe? I don't know, give some more info about the system and network etc...
Also, if your hard drive is going bad, and scandisk marked a bunch of bad sectors where your user account was stored, that could have wiped all that data.
Maybe I can help some more if you give some more details.
Good luck!
It almost sounds like you are running under a different user account somehow.
If you go into Control Panel to the users section, do you see your user account and any others?
If you click the start button (so the menu opens), do you see the correct user name at the very top?
For example if your username was "george" and now it says "default" or something, then you are in the wrong user. Try to log in with your old user name. If you click Start and Log Off, try to log back in with your old user.
What folders DO you have in Documents and Settings? You should have a folder for your user in there, can you open the folder? Or does is not exist?
If the folder IS there but you can't open it because it's "access denied", then you are logged in the wrong user. Your old account was probably password protected and that's why you can't see the files or search for them.
It's hard to tell what could be wrong without sitting in front of it. But in any case, check out the user account options.
It sounds like you might be in a domain, and it's possible your files were stored on the server maybe? I don't know, give some more info about the system and network etc...
Also, if your hard drive is going bad, and scandisk marked a bunch of bad sectors where your user account was stored, that could have wiped all that data.
Maybe I can help some more if you give some more details.
Good luck!
What version of Windows are you running? xp pro
It almost sounds like you are running under a different user account somehow. yeah, that's what it feels like, but it has my user name on it, but its the wierd nexus I'm talking about. It had an old collection of info that I thought I deleted tho.
If you go into Control Panel to the users section, do you see your user account and any others?
If you click the start button (so the menu opens), do you see the correct user name at the very top? my correct user name is there, but all the others arent which is also wierd.
For example if your username was "george" and now it says "default" or something, then you are in the wrong user. Try to log in with your old user name. If you click Start and Log Off, try to log back in with your old user. its not that its the wrong user account, its just that the user account has altered information with zero% or my real information being present. I did try what u said but if both accounts arent there.
What folders DO you have in Documents and Settings? You should have a folder for your user in there, can you open the folder? Or does is not exist?well, I just have the default folders in "my documents", and I can open everything, but whats there isnt what I had in MY documents, I'm missing music, video, images and code that I editted that was to be exported. I have copies of my code, but not of all my video work. whats wierd is that there are old copies of work/information that I thought I deleted and the text is in blue.
If the folder IS there but you can't open it because it's "access denied", then you are logged in the wrong user. Your old account was probably password protected and that's why you can't see the files or search for them.
no passwords on anything, its home and if someone can hack through my
firewall, then it should be just as easy to get through my win xp password.
It's hard to tell what could be wrong without sitting in front of it. But in any case, check out the user account options.
It sounds like you might be in a domain, and it's possible your files were stored on the server maybe? I don't know, give some more info about the system and network etc... well the system is on my home network on a linksys router with DSL, we're using the default linksys settings with a WPA key to keep it simple for ppl who are using it. this isnt an office environment but I do a lot of work on this computer.
Also, if your hard drive is going bad, and scandisk marked a bunch of bad sectors where your user account was stored, that could have wiped all that data.well there were no bad sectors, so thats why Im a little confused, there were a few corrupt files, but nothing other than that.
Good luck! thanks ! I really appreciate it, I feel like going back to mac now after so long, I've never been THIS confused and angry at the same time at an OS before, not even when I'm trying to find drivers for slackware !
It almost sounds like you are running under a different user account somehow. yeah, that's what it feels like, but it has my user name on it, but its the wierd nexus I'm talking about. It had an old collection of info that I thought I deleted tho.
If you go into Control Panel to the users section, do you see your user account and any others?
If you click the start button (so the menu opens), do you see the correct user name at the very top? my correct user name is there, but all the others arent which is also wierd.
For example if your username was "george" and now it says "default" or something, then you are in the wrong user. Try to log in with your old user name. If you click Start and Log Off, try to log back in with your old user. its not that its the wrong user account, its just that the user account has altered information with zero% or my real information being present. I did try what u said but if both accounts arent there.
What folders DO you have in Documents and Settings? You should have a folder for your user in there, can you open the folder? Or does is not exist?well, I just have the default folders in "my documents", and I can open everything, but whats there isnt what I had in MY documents, I'm missing music, video, images and code that I editted that was to be exported. I have copies of my code, but not of all my video work. whats wierd is that there are old copies of work/information that I thought I deleted and the text is in blue.
If the folder IS there but you can't open it because it's "access denied", then you are logged in the wrong user. Your old account was probably password protected and that's why you can't see the files or search for them.
no passwords on anything, its home and if someone can hack through my
firewall, then it should be just as easy to get through my win xp password.
It's hard to tell what could be wrong without sitting in front of it. But in any case, check out the user account options.
It sounds like you might be in a domain, and it's possible your files were stored on the server maybe? I don't know, give some more info about the system and network etc... well the system is on my home network on a linksys router with DSL, we're using the default linksys settings with a WPA key to keep it simple for ppl who are using it. this isnt an office environment but I do a lot of work on this computer.
Also, if your hard drive is going bad, and scandisk marked a bunch of bad sectors where your user account was stored, that could have wiped all that data.well there were no bad sectors, so thats why Im a little confused, there were a few corrupt files, but nothing other than that.
Good luck! thanks ! I really appreciate it, I feel like going back to mac now after so long, I've never been THIS confused and angry at the same time at an OS before, not even when I'm trying to find drivers for slackware !
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Hmm, reason I asked about your Windows version is because usually the "Directory Services Restore" is only on server versions. I can't recall seeing on XP Pro or Home, I'm probably wrong though, I guess it must exist on Pro if you got it.
But somehow I don't think that is what caused the data wipe. DSR mode is for Active Directory recovery stuff, very odd.
So then, if you are logged in to your original user, chances are good it overwrote your data with the default profile (which is "default" under docs and settings).
I am guessing you might try running data recovery software and see if you can recover any data. It's best to do that from another PC, if you can take your hard drive and plug it in to another PC to pull data off.
But if you've searched for your files, and not found them, you may be out of luck. Scandisk probably killed their entry in the MFT for some reason. And yet, you say the hard drive is still "full"?
Get the program called "sc disk info" from http://www.soft-central.net/diskinfo.php
It's free, and will show you, visually, where your space is going to. Study that for a while, see if your HDD usage makes sense.
I can't think of any free data recovery programs off-hand right now, I haven't used any in a while. But maybe search google for some "trial" versions, at least that will tell you if there is data to be found.
But somehow I don't think that is what caused the data wipe. DSR mode is for Active Directory recovery stuff, very odd.
So then, if you are logged in to your original user, chances are good it overwrote your data with the default profile (which is "default" under docs and settings).
I am guessing you might try running data recovery software and see if you can recover any data. It's best to do that from another PC, if you can take your hard drive and plug it in to another PC to pull data off.
But if you've searched for your files, and not found them, you may be out of luck. Scandisk probably killed their entry in the MFT for some reason. And yet, you say the hard drive is still "full"?
Get the program called "sc disk info" from http://www.soft-central.net/diskinfo.php
It's free, and will show you, visually, where your space is going to. Study that for a while, see if your HDD usage makes sense.
I can't think of any free data recovery programs off-hand right now, I haven't used any in a while. But maybe search google for some "trial" versions, at least that will tell you if there is data to be found.
hey, I found it ! THANKS a LOT ! it came up as found.000 and dirchk00000.chk. does that mean recovered/found disc sector #000? all my data...YES ! and yeah thats wierd I know this is a server protocol, which was why I didn't know what to do, anything I tried looking up was for password recovery not area dump. doesnt matter now, thanks I got my stuff. One final question though, have you ever seen/delt with a problem like this before ? Just curious as to how common this is.
Vigilante
Posts: 1,634 +0
When a file is found called "found.xxx", it usually means the file was "lost" and saved that way by scandisk.
I would say it's pretty common for a drive to get bad sectors, and for Windows to save the lost files as found.xxx, but it's more uncommon for the whole thing to go down because of the Directory Services thing. So I'd say it's rare.
But just to be on the safe side, your hard drive may be developing issues, I would keep backups and plan on replacing it soon.
Glad you found your stuff, losing personal data is like the worst thing that can happen!
I would say it's pretty common for a drive to get bad sectors, and for Windows to save the lost files as found.xxx, but it's more uncommon for the whole thing to go down because of the Directory Services thing. So I'd say it's rare.
But just to be on the safe side, your hard drive may be developing issues, I would keep backups and plan on replacing it soon.
Glad you found your stuff, losing personal data is like the worst thing that can happen!
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