Recovering Words Document

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums.

I suggest going to Control Panel>User Accounts and setting up a completely new User Account. Restart and log in to that account them migrate any files you want from the other account from c:\documents and settings\{thatusername}\all relevant folders into the equivalent folders in the new account.

It's a messy copy and paste exercise but only a one-off and you can then delete the old account and click to Delete Files back in User Accounts.

Thanks for your reply Saga Lout. Can you enlighten me how creating a new user account can restore the files I lost previously? Wouldn't copying everything over to the new user account be just the same as what I have right now?

I guess I am trying to find a way to bring back the mystery user account Windows booted me into, so I can access the files I moved from the account I am using now (c:\documents and settings\{thatusername}\desktop). I don't understand how the files can just be deleted without even being moved into the recycling bin....

Things I've tried:
- system search for the files I lost
- ran regedit and verify the user accounts
- system restore
- Recover unsaved files from Words

It's probably worth a shot at recovering those files - if they survived one temporary profile they may stlil be in there somewhere so long as you haven't defragged or written a lot of data to the disk. Try Recuva from http://www.piriform.com or Restoration2514 from whichever site you consider safest.

I still think a completely new account with its own profile is the best way forward but it's more of an experience thing than a sound technical basis.  

Thanks for the replies. I ended up typing up a new document altogether since I need it immediately. Tough lesson indeed....I didn't know Windows can create a temporary profile.

Best answer selected by andrewkylee.