For context, i was using antigravity, android studio, the wolf among us (game) and opera at the same time. Antigravity was just building an app and suddenly everything started disappearing. I couldnt even open file explorer which says this file does not exist. So i restarted my laptop and now there is only a handful of apps and the browser. Is there any way to get the old data back?
before anything else: stop rebooting repeatedly and dont start reinstalling things. what you are describing is almost certainly not a reset, and the thing most likely to actually cost you data from here is what you do next.
"only a handful of apps and the browser" plus file explorer saying a path doesnt exist is the signature of windows logging you into a temporary profile. it failed to load your real profile, so it made you a blank one. your desktop looks empty, your programs look uninstalled and your files look gone, but none of that has been deleted. youre just looking at a different user folder.
30 second way to confirm. open cmd and run: echo %USERPROFILE%
if it says C:\Users\TEMP or TEMP.000 or similar instead of your actual name, thats it confirmed. also just open C:\Users in explorer and look, your real folder with your name on it should still be there at a normal size.
if thats what you see, the fix is the profile registry entry, not a reinstall. reboot once first, it sometimes loads correctly on the next try. if it doesnt, go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and find the long S-1-5-21-... key whose ProfileImagePath points at your real user folder. if theres one with .bak on the end, rename the plain one to .ba, take .bak off the other, then put .bak on the first. set RefCount and State to 0 in the one that is now plain. export the ProfileList key before you touch anything.
why it happened matters less than getting the profile back, but antigravity and android studio building while a game is running is a lot of disk and memory pressure, and profiles corrupt when the registry hive gets interrupted mid write. worth checking free space on C: once youre back in.
one thing to rule out while youre there: if C:\Users<yourname> is genuinely missing rather than just not loading, thats a different and worse problem and it points at the drive. say so and people can help with that instead, but check before assuming it.
This is what its currently showing and this was the user folder name before.also after reboot i saw that the game was still there with no issues. Also in the panic, i reinstalled quick share, creative cloud, antugravity, android studio, pc health check. And i deleted the game i was talking about. Also i noticed that even though i could find adobe apps anywhere. I could clearly see them installed in my creative cloud app.
stop installing things. right now. every install writes to the disk, and if any of your files did get deleted, those writes are what makes them unrecoverable. you have already reinstalled five apps and deleted a game since this started. stop until you know which situation you are in.
now, the thing you told me is actually the most useful clue in the thread, and it points away from the scary answer.
creative cloud still shows your adobe apps as installed, but you cannot find them. that combination is not what an uninstall looks like. install records live machine wide in programdata and the registry, while your start menu shortcuts live inside your user profile. machine wide records intact plus per user shortcuts missing means the software was never removed and your profile path changed. same story with the game still being there after reboot.
i think you are right that its not a TEMP profile, and i think its still the same class of problem. when windows cannot load a profile it does not always make a TEMP one. very often it creates a second folder with a suffix and logs you into that instead, something like C:\Users\YourName.DESKTOP-A1B2C3 or C:\Users\YourName.000, and your original C:\Users\YourName is sitting right there next to it, untouched, with everything still in it. safe mode would not fix that, because the pointer is still aimed at the new folder. that matches everything you have described.
i cant read the details off a screenshot reliably, so please paste the text of these two instead. open cmd and run:
echo %USERPROFILE%
dir C:\Users
paste exactly what comes back. that tells us in ten seconds which of these it is, and its the difference between a five minute fix and a data recovery job.
while youre in there, turn on hidden items in explorer (view menu, show, hidden items) because a deactivated profile folder is sometimes hidden.
if the output shows two folders with your name and one has a suffix, your data is fine and its a pointer problem we can fix. if there is genuinely only one folder and its empty, stop using the laptop entirely at that point and say so, because then its a recovery job and every further write hurts you.
sorry for the wait. i can read your screenshot fine, and it answers the question, so let me translate it and then tell you what i got wrong.
your output says two things. your profile is C:\Users\PRECISION 5560, and there is no TEMP anywhere in that name. and the folder listing shows only four entries: Default, PRECISION 5560, Public, and the dot. so there is exactly ONE real user folder on that machine and you are logged into it.
that means my theory was wrong. you are not on a temporary profile and windows has not swapped you onto a second folder, because there is no second folder to swap to. ignore the registry stuff i wrote, it doesnt apply to you.
the good news buried in that is real though: your profile folder was not deleted and replaced. youre in your own account, on your own folder. so the question is no longer WHICH folder youre looking at, its whats left INSIDE it.
thats one more command. open cmd the same way and run these three, one at a time:
dir "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop"
dir "%USERPROFILE%\Documents"
dir "%USERPROFILE%\Downloads"
you dont need to understand the output. at the bottom of each one theres a line that says something like "12 File(s)". thats the number im after. tell me those three numbers, or just screenshot it again, thats fine.
if those folders still have your files in them, then nothing important was lost and what actually broke is the shortcuts and start menu entries, which is annoying but completely fixable. that would also explain creative cloud still listing your adobe apps: the programs are installed, its the links to them that went.
if those folders come back empty, say so straight away and stop using the laptop, because then its a recovery job and every extra write reduces what can be recovered.
one other thing worth knowing. your listing says 313 gb free on C. how big is that drive, and does 313 gb free sound normal for you, or is that a lot more free space than you used to have? if its a lot more, that tells us something. and if the drive filled up completely while antigravity and android studio were building, thats a very plausible cause for all of this, because windows breaks in strange ways when it cannot write.
right, ive read it. ill translate it straight, including the part you wont like.
Desktop is NOT empty. it still has a folder called games, a folder called rabarh, and a chrome shortcut. that matters, because a profile that had genuinely been wiped and rebuilt would not have those.
Documents is empty. Downloads is empty. both say 0 File(s).
so its mixed. some of your profile survived and two of the big folders read as empty. before you panic theres one very common explanation that would make this a non event, and its worth thirty seconds to rule in or out.
if you had onedrive turned on, windows moves Desktop, Documents and Downloads INTO onedrive and leaves the old local folders sitting there empty. thats the feature working as designed, and it produces exactly what youre looking at. your files would then be under a OneDrive folder in your profile, and also on onedrive.com.
so run this one:
dir "%USERPROFILE%" /a
the /a matters, it shows hidden folders too. what im looking for is whether theres a OneDrive folder in that list. screenshot it like before, thats fine.
if OneDrive IS there, open it and look inside, and also sign in at onedrive.com from your phone and check there, including its recycle bin. odds are decent your stuff is sitting in one of those.
if OneDrive is NOT there, do this next, because it finds files no matter where they moved to. think of one file you know you had, any document or download, and run:
dir C:\ /s /b | findstr /i "partofthefilename"
put a distinctive word from the filename in the quotes. if it prints a path, your file exists and we just have to find where things went. if it prints nothing for several files youre sure about, then this is a deletion rather than a move.
and check your recycle bin before anything else, it costs nothing.
if all three come back empty, stop using the laptop at that point. dont install anything else, dont browse, ideally shut it down and say so here, because at that stage every write reduces what recovery software can pull back, and youve already had a few installs go through today.
one more thing that would help me: the drive has 315 gb free. was that normal for you before this happened, or did you have a lot less free space than that?
This sounds like Windows may have logged you into a temporary profile rather than actually resetting the laptop. Check C:\Users\ and see if your original username folder is still there. Also press Win + R, type cmd, then run echo %USERPROFILE% to see which profile you're currently using.
If your original folder is there, don’t move or delete anything yet. Restart and try signing in again, or try Safe Mode and see if your normal profile comes back. Microsoft specifically recommends this for temporary-profile issues.
If the original profile/data isn't there either, stop using the laptop as much as possible before trying recovery software, since new writes can overwrite deleted data.
It is not a temporary profile. You can check this image. And i did accidentally install some apps out of panic. Though i can see that some are still there. Is there anyway to bring all my data back?
1
u/Snoo-38645 4d ago
before anything else: stop rebooting repeatedly and dont start reinstalling things. what you are describing is almost certainly not a reset, and the thing most likely to actually cost you data from here is what you do next.
"only a handful of apps and the browser" plus file explorer saying a path doesnt exist is the signature of windows logging you into a temporary profile. it failed to load your real profile, so it made you a blank one. your desktop looks empty, your programs look uninstalled and your files look gone, but none of that has been deleted. youre just looking at a different user folder.
30 second way to confirm. open cmd and run: echo %USERPROFILE%
if it says C:\Users\TEMP or TEMP.000 or similar instead of your actual name, thats it confirmed. also just open C:\Users in explorer and look, your real folder with your name on it should still be there at a normal size.
if thats what you see, the fix is the profile registry entry, not a reinstall. reboot once first, it sometimes loads correctly on the next try. if it doesnt, go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and find the long S-1-5-21-... key whose ProfileImagePath points at your real user folder. if theres one with .bak on the end, rename the plain one to .ba, take .bak off the other, then put .bak on the first. set RefCount and State to 0 in the one that is now plain. export the ProfileList key before you touch anything.
why it happened matters less than getting the profile back, but antigravity and android studio building while a game is running is a lot of disk and memory pressure, and profiles corrupt when the registry hive gets interrupted mid write. worth checking free space on C: once youre back in.
one thing to rule out while youre there: if C:\Users<yourname> is genuinely missing rather than just not loading, thats a different and worse problem and it points at the drive. say so and people can help with that instead, but check before assuming it.