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General discussion

Mysterious file lose

Dec 8, 2003 6:29PM PST

Hi. I'm troubleshooting my school's Windows 2000 Professional computer. They don't know why, but they just lost their documents inside their computer. Other things are okay: programmes still start well, Windows 2000 still boot well etc.

The only thing I notice that day when I checked their computer is, after the Login prompt, Windows 2000 said Cannot load Administrator profile. However, when I go back again today, the same message does not appear anymore.

I can't find any documents in the Administrator.bak folder. About backups, no, there is no hope for that, because they don't do backups.

Is there any last solutions that I can try before I declare the documents dead? Am I right also, to assume that this has nothing to do with viruses?

Discussion is locked

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Re:Mysterious file lose
Dec 8, 2003 8:22PM PST

Some school systems delete files on logout if you don't put the files on the server as the administration told you to.

As systems age, people may forget about these rules and then you wonder.

You also may not have a virus, but one of the Nachi or MS-Blaster worms. These are not stopped by an Anti-Virus and I'll leave you to use http://www.google.com to learn why.

Bob

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Re:Re:Mysterious file lose
Dec 9, 2003 11:58PM PST

Thanks Robert.

Well, actually the computer I'm troubleshooting is my secondary school's computer in the office, where clerks type and store their documents. The computer is not connected to the network. So, I'm extremely sure that their computers are not those which will delete files automatically.

Robert, besides viruses and worms, can you think of other possibilities which caused this? It would be impossible to have such a 'beautiful hard drive crash', where only its documents are affected, but not its Windows system files and program files right?

Thanks!

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You didn't get the message.
Dec 10, 2003 12:08AM PST

1. The machine could have a policy to do this on login/logout. The installer or IT staffer should know about this. Its often done this way to keep files out of the Administrator login or others.

2. Virus, worms and more do not respect "is not connected to the network." You will be hammered constantly about this until it sinks in. Not by me, but by how many thousands of virus/worm/pest/parasite writers that are out there and your idea of "I'm safe" promptly vanishes. I've dropped the hints, but its up to you to learn the lesson.

Hope you find it. But it's not a known bug or issue with the subject OS.

Bob