I had to go through a setup and it created a new Administrator account. It restored my computer back to original settings without deleting my files. I found the solution on another forum. When you perform a System Recovery your files are kept. A destructive restore alters your hard drive and deletes everything. Here's the solution incase this happens to anyone else.
Hello, I have seen this all over and am working on offering my help as it seems lots of us do it and want to die after we do. This works well on compaq computers xp/vista however im sure it can be efficitive with most computers running windows os
How to restore after pc recovery
I recomend printing this before moving your computer into safe mode.
--""Before you complete the process""
Click START
Click MY Computer
Double click the main hard drive (C
Click DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS
--mouse over all the user in this folder, the one that shows empty, and once clicked on does not give you premission to open is the folder you want to use when completing the process. This should be the user (user name) you had before the restore, is may have a .PC(with numbers behind it)
--write down and remember this folder name
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Turn the power on, and when the blue HP or Compaq screen appears, press F8 to display the Windows Advanced Options Menu .
3.Use the arrow keys to move up to Safe Mode and press Enter .
4.Press Enter on Microsoft Windows Whistler Personal or Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition .
5.Click Administrator and, enter your password (if necessary) or press Enter .
6.A window will appear to prompt for confirmation to keep operating in Safe Mode .
7.Click Yes .
8.Click Start and My Computer . Then, double-click the main hard drive ( C: ) and Documents and Settings .
9.Right-click the folder name of the user account and click Properties . (This is the folder you found and wrote down before starting this process)
10.Click Security .
11.Click Advanced . On the Owner tab,(third tab over) click the checkbox to select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects option.
12. Click Apply .
13.Click Yes to the security message.
14.Click OK .
15.Click OK again.(you should start to see the files being transferred that your trying to access)
--Restart your computer in normal operation.
--Login to your user name
--make a new folder on your desktop and name it "BINGO", open that folder and create a folder named "FOUND IT"
click START
click MY COMPUTER
Double click the main hard drive (C
click DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS
--from here go to any user that does not contain adminstrator, or all users in the file name
(if you don't find the folder your looking for exit out of that user and choose another until you find the Folder)
--once you open each user
click DESKTOP
--look through the desktop folder, your looking for the folder BINGO open that and you should see the folder FOUND IT, this is the user that you want to copy all your lost files from the old user to.
--Wirte down this user name
Exit back to the DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS folder
--- at this point you should see all the users folders again, however when you click on the user folder you used the process on (the first folder you have written down) that folder will now open.
--From here you need to move your files back from (the first folder you have written down) to your currently operating user name (the second folder you have wirtten down)
--you should see all of your desktop, my music, my pics, my movies, (in the first folder you have written down) however until you move these files from the old user to your current user the computer will not always find them in your basic progams(ie.--windows movie maker, media player, ext.)
