PC problem - can anyone help please?

[ibbydibby]

Something weird seems to have happened to my PC overnight. Worked fine yesterday, switched on this morning, and many icons were missing from desktop. Went into Word, and there were no documents listed (I have loads). Big panic. Came out of Word, looked at directories etc, thankfully rediscovered all documents in rightful directories, and can now acccess these in Word. Phew.

But have similar probs with both Outlook and Windows Live Mail. Because I have managed to "rediscover" my Word stuff, am sure that the emails are lurking somewhere, but not sure how to go about locating them. currently if I go into either Outlook or Live Mail I am treated as a new user and get prompts for setting up new account.

Wondering if the solution is to re-boot? Or what?

I haven't used windows in a while, but while you are waiting for someone more knowledgeable, you could try a search for the backup files and restore them. If you open outlook, and go to File, import, then look for the .pst file that should be on your computer somewhere.

It sounds to me like your windows user data has been corrupted, so you are logging in but it isn't recalling your user settings.

Thanks Hops. Since posting my earlier message I tried System Restore, and (fingers very tightly crossed) it worked. Everything back to how it was yesterday...I hope...

Not sure why all went wrong though. DCs did not use PC at all yesterday so can't blame them, fortunately.

thats great.

It's as if you logged into Windows under a different account...

If you've fixed it all now then it's hard to prove that. When you boot up do you normally select a user or does it go straight in?

Thanks Hops and Badger, yes it does seem as if I had logged on as a different user. We have 4 listed, one each. I am the heaviest user by far (my PC!!). But I did check the other 3 just in case they had got confused somehow.

In answer to your question, when I boot up, I have to choose myself as the user.

How are you Badger? You gave me loads of help once before. Think you were expecting second DC...?

Now off for run, which I have been putting off..

Ibby it sounds like your local profile had become corrupt. Effectively logging you on as a new users, as badgerspaws said.

It happens a lot, due to the amount that your profile is updated whenever you do any work or log on or off. Glad the restore works.