Windows – Cannot log onto new accounts – “The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded”

It's possible that your user profile is not corrupted, but that Windows is having trouble loading it (think a bad hard drive). You can boot into the Windows 7 Recovery Console from your Windows 7 DVD. Open the command prompt and start a chkdsk.

If your profile is actual corrupted, you can try a system restore. This will restore your profile back to an earlier date. Again, use the Windows 7 DVD to do this.

You may also be able to rename the user profile using the command prompt (eg

cd \Users

ren UserAccount UserAccount.old

And then try to log in, Windows might complain of a different problem but it should recreate a profile for you.

EDIT: Are you sure you are the only user? Unless you are the local administrator, there should also be an "Administrator" account.

The following assumes that the machine is an AD domain member:

Connect to the machine remotely with Registry Editor. Open regedit on a remote computer, using alternate credentials if necessary. Such as Domain Admin credentials. In Regedit, click File -> Connect Network Registry... and connect to the computer with the busted profile.

Since you say that there is only 1 profile on this machine, then it has to be Administrator (SID-500.)

So now that you are connected to the remote machine's registry, navigate to

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

And delete every subkey that looks like S-1-5-21-xxxxxx-500.

Next, open up a Command Prompt, Cmd.exe, again using alternate credentials such as a Domain Admin, that has privileges on the remote machine. Run the following command:

C:\> rd /s \\computer01\C$\Users\Administrator

Delete the directory. Also delete any other similar directory like

\\computer01\C$\Users\Administrator.Domain if it exists. If this is Windows XP or 2003, the profiles will be under Documents and Settings, instead of Users.

Problem solved.

Now, if this is not a domain-joined computer, then your only options are to do something like

• Hit F12 during boot and use the recovery options, such as Last Known Good Configuration, or Repair, etc.
• Use the Windows installation media (DVD, USB,) if you don't have a recovery partition, and use that to repair, restore from backup, etc. At the very least you can open a command prompt and copy off some files if you need to reimage the thing.

Good luck.