The Ultimate XP Corrupt and TEMP Profile problem

[Richard Schroader]

I just had an amazing experience, partially out of my idiocy and
partially out of Microsoft's and my customer's. I have a customer who
called me and said that they received a message saying that their
profile was corrupt and that a temporary profile would be created for
them. (I of course didn't realize how "temporary" temporary meant).
As a novice, she was concerned because she could no longer find "her
documents". This of course was because it was in the other profile.

If she had read me the entire message, which says "All information
stored in this temporary profile will be lost", there would have been
no problem, but she never read down that far. So I dutifully
instructed her how to move her "My documents" folder over to the new
(temporary) profile. Of course upon reboot, the entire folder
disappeared. They are not in the recycle bin, they are not in the
Norton Protected files. I've even used "Get Data Back" and can see no
traces of any of her files.

She is obviously devastated and I've rarely seen such a situation
where you couldn't use one of these tools too see at least fragments
of this folder that has now disappeared into what was a temporary
profile.

Any suggestions other than take a vallium and tell her that she's
screwed?

Thanks in advance,
-R