Lost myWin10 User Partition Name

1 The Net user result is therefore normal. USER is shown. So there is no reason from this to think there is anything wrong with your user account.
- I'm still worried about that recent login to USER shown in the net user USER results. You said that the account was defective before that login happened.

2 In this first diagram of a C:\Users\USER folder you can see the normal subfolders of a user account. You should copy all these subfolders somewhere safe such as a USB stick until the problems are resolved.

Normal user folders - they should all be copied off

At a level above that, you will also notice a folder at C:\Users\Administrator because you've been signed -in to the Built-in Admin account [UserName - Administrator] since the catastrophe happened. That will only have files made since then so do not help with your recovery.

BUT I thought you said before that the C:\Users\USER folder was not there. So I assume it only appeared when you selected showing hidden & system folders-files. That is not normal. I still suspect malware.
AND BE CAREFUL WITH THESE OTHERS THAT APPEAR WHEN HIDDEN & SYSTEM FILES ARE SHOWN

Normal user "folders" with hidden and then with both hidden & system files displayed - don't do anything with the ones I've written NO against. They do not contain your files, they are not "user folders" at all despite what they look like.

3 I just wondered if any of your folders & files might be in the recycle bin. Even if they are not the latest versions, they would be better than nothing.

4 I am puzzled about what caused this mess. I know nothing about Malware hunter but a second opinion using a different anti-malware utility would not be a waste of time [Bitdefender if that's installed, otherwise Windows Defender]

5 Lack of backups. Understood.

6.4 Administrator account.
This is useful in allowing you to create replacement Admin accounts. Create those replacement Admin accounts now. You can use the procedure I linked to in my previous para 1.6.

6.6 Blinking - I don't understand what you are referring to here. Sorry.

6.7 MS

Is there any point me asking Microsoft If USER can be recovered?

No point at all. The instructions I've given you are your only chance.

6.8 Create new accounts

Otherwise. I'm very ready to create my 2nd Admin Account to replace the Admin Account I lost, USER.

Just to be sure. My first move is going to be to create a new 2nd Admin Account, c:\Users\NEWUSER

Presume I can use the create account to create an Admin Account.

Yes, yes, yes. And, as I said, create more than one so you have a reserve. I do.

6.9 No need to create a new user folder - Windows does that

Should I create and copy this folder first, or after I've created NEWUSER?

The act of logging in to NewUser creates that folder. You don't have to do anything and, if you did create it before the account was created or before first logging in to it, it would cause problems.
Note that it's logging in to it that creates the folder not the act of creating the account itself.

6.10 Selective copying only

And to copy everything from c:\Users\USER\ to c:\Users\NEWUSER\.

Only copy from the subfolders I have identified.

6.11 It's called the Built-in Admin account not " System admin" or anything else [despite some odd references even in MS documentation]. Its user name is Administrator.
- It is nothing special other than having a particular [risky] setting on by default whereas you'd have to take particular [risky] action to do that on an Admin account that you had created yourself [turning "UAC" off].
- Reject all assertions that it is anything special. It cannot do anything that a normal Admin account cannot do.
- I'm deliberately being pedantic in the hope of avoiding misunderstandings.

6.12 USER was always an Admin account

There was also in there the USER account showing as Regular User not as an Admin

I don't know what point you were trying to make.

6.13 I do not know what you've been doing or where you are looking

There was also in there the USER account showing as Regular User not as an Admin. Which was definitely wrong. It should have been an Administrator. So I changed that back to Administrator, and it now appears on Other Users, with my logo (from before), and my photographic memory <joke> tells me this was how it looked before this incident.

If you had accidentally made USER a standard user account, its folder would still have appeared in C:\Users but I thought the problem we were working on was that its folder did not appear.

6.14 Boot folder

So before I do anything else. I'd like to make this the boot folder, and reboot, to see if it boots to this partition. But so far I haven't been able figure out how to do that. So I need help. with that.

What do you mean? There is no such thing as a boot folder.

6.15 jopay

I'm not confident it will work. Why? I think there is something wrong with the saving data between C:\Users\* and what is being reported by windows. ie: I think I deleted the \jopay\ user a long time ago, without going thru the menus. This is just 1 example.

Without knowing how you deleted jopay, I don't know. Are your missing files actually within jopay's user folder?
Your original symptom was C:\Users\USER not being present. What else is wrong?

6.16 Mismatches

But I think it's worth a shot because I "think" my computer is now figured as it should be. What worries me most, is that there may be no connection from what I see in the Windows menu, to actually on the disk. Maybe or Maybe not.

Again, I don't understand what you mean here.


All the best,
Denis

2 Copy off whatever of your own files you can find

6.4, 6.8 Create now user Admin accounts.

Denis

stub said:

OK. I'm going to create 3 new administrator accounts.Admin1, Admin2, Admin3. When I did a search how to do this Microsoft seemed to tell me I need to create an user account and turn that into Administrator Account. But on my computer it looks as if I can create a either a user or an administrator account. I haven't pressed any buttons to start anything yet. Until I got the go-ahead from you, how I should create these Administrator Accounts. I presume I should not add these to microsoft, at this stage?

Stu,

Use this procedure.

Try3 said:

Then use Administrator to create one or two new Admin accounts and start logging into one of them instead.
my ditty - Create two spare local, password-protected Admin accounts [post #2] - TenForums

Make them Local accounts for now.

Denis

Stu,

The link I gave you tells you how to create a new user account and then how to make it an Admin.

The forum software must have corrupted part of your question, it shows you asking "How do I make one of them the bootable ...". I think you asked, "how can I bypass the need to sign-in to a particular user account at start-up and so go straight to its Desktop".
The answer is to use NetPlWiz -
Sign in User Account Automatically - TenForumsTutorials
and, as the tutorial notes, you might first have to use this to make the necessary checkbox appear
Enable or Disable Passwordless Sign-in - TenForumsTutorials
But I hope you do not bother with that until everything else is resolved.


All the best,
Denis

Only a system image could restore you to pre-problem days. I don't know if Bootable Scandisk is a system imaging utility but its name does not make it sound like one. A system iamge would be sveral GB, probably at least 10GB.

As for creating a new user, I do not know what is going wrong. Add Local Account or Microsoft Account - TenForumsTutorials
If Option 1 is not working, try Option 6 [the Command prompt method].
- Keep it simple by omitting any spaces or special characters in the username or password [you can always change the password to a decent one later on].
e.g.
net user "UserName" "Password" /add
net user "NewUser" "12345" /add
Note - if you are still logged in to the Built-in Admin account, all your command prompts are already elevated.

Best of luck,
Denis

Night, night, Stu.

The bootup screen provides a list of all the accounts you can log into. So that's a menu of sorts. But it won't appear if you bypass it [as I do and you intend to do]

Clicking on the user icon in the Start menu also shows a list of user accounts.

What "corrupt Admin"?

All the best,
Denis