I have an HP laptop that I've owned since 2023 or 2024. After several months of issues like crashing, screen glitches, and significant slowdown, things reached a breaking point two days ago. It became nearly unusable while browsing Chrome, and I discovered some strange software on it that I didn't install, which I quickly deleted. Despite that, the laptop kept crashing, and last night I encountered a 'user profile not working, logging out' message on the lockscreen. Today, after switching it off and back on, I found that my Microsoft account was logged out, but I managed to log back in. However, it appears that my laptop is wiped clean. I've lost access to all my Google accounts and can't find any of my saved files, except for the items in the recycle bin. I had stopped backing up to OneDrive due to space issues, and now I'm really worried about losing my diary entries from the past two years saved on my desktop. Can anyone help me recover any of my lost files? Also, please keep it simple; I'm not very tech-savvy.
3 Answers
You should try removing the SSD and putting it in a USB adapter to see if you can recover your files using a program like Recuva. There’s a chance you might find something that hasn’t been overwritten yet. It sounds like you might have picked up a virus since there were those strange apps. In my experience, HP laptops aren't bad, I've used them myself for over 20 years without major issues!
If you haven't backed up your files to the cloud or an external drive, it’s likely that most of your files are gone for good. Check OneDrive, as your files might still be there if you didn’t delete them. With SSDs, recovering deleted files is pretty tricky compared to older hard drives, so make sure you consider investing in more storage on OneDrive next time! Drive failures, viruses, and file corruption are such common problems. Always best to keep backups.
Since you got a user profile error, there’s a possibility you're logged into a different profile now. Your old files might still be accessible under C:Usersomething. You may need to take ownership of that old profile to get access to your files, but it depends if the data is still there.
I was able to get back into the same profile. Might my files still be there?
Just a heads up, there's a chance that your files could be encrypted now.