I'm in a bit of a bind here and could really use some guidance. Last night, my laptop (Windows 11, HP Omen) was working perfectly. However, when I booted it up this morning, I encountered an error saying, 'User Profile Service failed the sign in. User profile cannot be loaded.' After this, I restarted my laptop and logged into a brand new temporary profile that looked nothing like my usual setup. In a panic, I thought my files had all disappeared, so I called my dad for help. I managed to locate my files and, in a rush to keep working (I've got a submission due tomorrow), I moved them onto this temporary profile. Unfortunately, after experiencing some lag with my Adobe software, I restarted again. This time, my old profile returned, but all my files from the desktop were gone! I've searched everywhere on my laptop, including the temp folder in users, but came up empty. I'm not very experienced with laptops and don't have backups, so I'm really worried. Is there any possible way to recover files that were transferred into the temporary profile after it got wiped on reboot? This feels like a huge loss for me, and I'm truly panicking!
3 Answers
Professional data recovery can get pretty pricey. If your SSD supports the trim command, unfortunately, your files might be overwritten. Make sure to check out [this resource](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3259431/windows-10-temporary-profile-deleted-all-my-files) for more insight. Just a tip for the future: always follow the 3-2-1 backup rule! If you had copied instead of moved your files, you'd still have them in your old profile.
Your files might still be located under C:Users. Try rebooting and logging in again. If you get sent back to the temp profile, you’ll need to follow steps to fix the corrupted profile. Check out this guide for help: [Fix Corrupted User Profile](https://windowsreport.com/corrupt-user-profile-windows-10/)—it works for Windows 11 too!
Did you cut or just copy your files when you moved them? Also, how much free space do you have on your drive? That might affect recovery options.
I dragged the files straight off my OneDrive, and I've got around 500GB free out of 952GB total.