System Restore MESSED UP BIG TIME. HELP!

[falcon2000]

Dell D80 Laptop
XP SP3

I was running a System Restore b/c my IE7 was kinda funky. I am not sure this is the cause of the problem or not, but while it was doing the restore, I walked away and forgot that the laptop was on battery and would go on Stand By mode. Anyway, when I came back the laptop wouldn't come back up from Stand By. So I force shutdown the laptop. When it came back up, it said the restore was successful. But I lost everything. Documents and settings and all. As if it has been restored to the very first day I bought the laptop. I have done numerous "undo last restore" and a whole bunch of other restore points and it won't work.

Now, the stuffs are still in the computer. I know for sure b/c I did a search on one of my documents and it showed up. Then I drilled down to C:\Documents and Settings\User name\user name's Documents, I saw all of them there too and they can be opened just fine. Same for all the Outlook 2007 files. I just finish backing them up to a DVD.

However, when I open the "My Documents" link, I cannot see the files there. When I startup Outlook, it asked me to setup again. I think I am safe now having the files backup. But how do I repair XP back to its normal working state?

[Broni]

Since you saved all data, boot up to Windows CD, and reinstall Windows.

[HAN]

Bummer! I agree with Broni that you will probably have to take some drastic action.

I know the rest of my advice won't help much at this exact stage but have you ever considered using imaging software? If you had been using something like Acronis True Image, ShadowProtect Desktop, Paragon Drive Backup, Image for Windows, etc., you could have restored your system to a healthy point in time in minutes.

While it could have been solely caused by the battery, you have unfortunately learned why System Restore is an extremely poor thing to rely on. I quit trusting it a long time ago.

[falcon2000]

Unfortunately, this is a work computer, I don't have the OS CD. I can use the Dell restore. But the thing is I don't have any of the softwares. So, either way, I'll have to bring it to IT to get all the softwares backs and it's gonna take a few days. Trying to avoid that.

[Steve R Jones]

After plugging in AC power - try another restore point.

[lgbpop]

If your only major problem is the corrupted My Documents link, right-click on it and select Properties; you can change the shortcut's target to the proper filepath.

[falcon2000]

Yes, I have tried many other Restore Points already but it's no use.

Under C:\Documents and Settings, there are now many other user names. They are user.000, user.domainname, user.domainname.000, user.domainname.001, etc, etc. And each time I do a System restore, it adds one of these users to C:\Documents and Settings.These users are only visible under C:\Documents and Settings but not under Control panel\User Accounts. I log in w/ my usual username and password but it is as if the computer actually log into the wrong user that was created from the last Restore. And that's why i couldn't see any of my stuffs. I copy everything to the "wrong" user and my documents and emails are all there now. So, it's usable at this point but it's a mess. I would like to figure a way out of this mess w/o re-installing.