Please can you help, I messed up my daughter's Vaio

[jandjmassey]

I feel so absolutely foolish!  I am so cross with myself.

Early yesterday morning in the half light (and without my specs) I pressed the 'Assist' button thinking this was the sleep  button as I have on my laptop. 

Somehow, the Vaio reconfigured itself to a new user and all my daughter's (and son in law's) info has gone!

Their user name which was 'Jason' doesn't now exist! 

I can't believe all their info, pics etc. has been deleted.  Not in such a short space of time the machine was 'updating'!

Has everything been lost?  If not, then how can I reinstate the files - where do they reside on the computer?

Can they somehow be brought back?

My daughter says they never used to log in as a user, which may be that was because they were logged in as the Administrator.

Please can someone help, as I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep soundly again!  

I am amazed that pressing such a small button can do so much damage.

Also, their serial numbers/passwords for Word, Internet, etc. has been wiped and needs to have them reinserted.  Some software has gone altogether, such as itunes.

[jandjmassey]

BTW - the Vaio is working okay - like it would do from scratch.

It runs on Windows 7.

[mathewlisett]

control panel>under user accounts and family safety>add or remove user accounts> select the new acc and press remove, then reboot.

[jandjmassey]

Thank you mathewlisett - would the original user, believe it was called 'Jason' appear then?

Would this bring back the data that appears to be lost?

The user I have mistakenly created called 'Kate' is visible and appears as Administrator, there is another user, called Guest.

Sorry for being a coward, but I've lost my confidence here.  Wouldn't mind but normally I'm quite switched-on where pc's are concerned.  Maybe it's because I am so mortified!  How could I do this??

[Blencogo]

Hi,

mathewlisett is probably right.  It looks like you have created a new user - Kate - which is password protected.  This User Account is the only one that shows up on the login screen because Jason is not password protected.

Before you do anything, right-click on the 'Start' button and select 'Open Windows Explorer'.

When Explorer opens look for Computer in the left hand window. Under that group you will see Local Disc C: - click on this to highlight it..

In the right-hand window, scroll down to Users and double-click on it.

Can you see folders for BOTH Jason and Kate?  Double click on Jason - can you see your daughter's files and folders?

If yes, have a good stiff drink.

Confirm that the files are still there first and then we can take the next step.

[mathewlisett]

well the only other help i could provide is by remotely accessing the system by teamviewer (you install the software and pm me the id and password) i then see what i can do, and you also see what im doing at the same time

[jandjmassey]

Thanks Blencogo.

Followed your instructions, there are three users, Kate, Guest, Default, none of them have any files in their directory.  There is no Jason.

Appreciate any help you can offer.

Message was edited by: jandjmassey

Message was edited by: jandjmassey

[jandjmassey]

Thank you Mathewlisett for your kind offer, think I'll decline if that is okay, if it was my vaio it would be ok, but as you can imagine, I'm already in bother with my daughter.

Waiting for Blencogo to reply.

Many thanks.

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

That doesn't sound very promising - it does look like Jason has been deleted.  Just to make sure, you can try the following to exhaust all possibilities: -

1.  Click on the Start button and expand the drop down box where it says Shut Down.  Click on 'Change User'.  What User accounts are shown?

2.  Hold down the Windows Key (bottom left of spacebar) and press R.  Type into the Run Box (or copy and paste from here)

control userpasswords2

and click OK.   Which User Accounts are listed?  Is the box requiring all users to login with a password checked?

3.  What version of Windows 7 do you have installed?  You need Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate to check for disabled users.  Just type MMC in to the Search Box under the Start button.  Can you see a file MMC.EXE and open it?

4.  Check in the Recycle Bin on your Desktop to see if any deleted files are still there.

5.  Go to Control Panel and find Folder Options.  Change the settings to be able to see all hidden files and folders - just in case.  Recheck in the Users folder.  Change the settings to look like this: -

Can you remember what you did in the Vaio Care menu?  How long did the update run for?

If all this fails to recover any files you will have to consider just leaving it as it is and restarting from scratch or contacting a data recovery company (try Google).  A data recovery company may be able to undelete individual files as long as they have not been overwritten.  If you are going to do this then don't use the laptop to prevent files being overwritten.

Sorry I can't be more encouraging.

[mathewlisett]

maybe we are focusing on one area.

what about doing a system resore, so hopefully a point before all this happened?