I was defragmenting my hard drive on my laptop when the laptop went into sleep mode.

Didn't seem like a big deal at the time but when I re-booted, windows could not load the user profile as it could not find the proper files. I can only assume that a file was corrupted / lost / misfiled when the defragmentation process was terminated unexpectedly.

The laptop now freezes on the "welcome" screen and will eventually generate an error window stating "the copy of windows must be activated. do you want to activate now?"

But then when you click yes, and get to the screen where it shows the user profile icons, when you click on the user profile icon to proceed, another error message is generated stating,. "windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile."

When you try to proceed from this point, it just loops back to the original error message.

I have used "safe mode" to delete the old profile (while retaining my personal document files associated to that profile) and created a new profile, hoping that this would solve the problem.

Well, the problem is still there (even with the newly created profile) and I'm wondering what I can do. I certainly do not want to do a re-install. And even if I have no choice but to do a re-install, the laptop did not come with the original Windows CD anyway. The software was pre-loaded.

Any advice?

Try the following: When Windows starts you press F8 until you get the screen with the boot options. Then start it with boot protocollation (don't know how the exact term is in the english menu - i only have the german version). When it freezes you reset it and start it in safe mode, then go into your windows directory and open ntbtlog.txt. This is the protocol file which may give you a hint if any system files are corrupted. Sadly this log isn't as complete as it was during the Win98 era.

Did you have a look into your event log?

I had to set up my laptop completely from scratch when I exchanged my old 20 GB HD by a bigger one. Went well with the Recover CD that came with the laptop. Laptop is a Dell.

Or you can try the system restore function. Go to the same menu as Uwe said and choose "last working configuration" or something like that

Marien - I tried the "last known configuration that worked" option (after pressing F8) but that did not help.

Uwe - how do I identify which file is corrupt under ntblog.txt? And if / when I do identify it, what do I do with it?

In the meantime, I will try to use the "system Restore" tool in safe mode and see if that helps.

Sorry, I have no help to offer other than to say this is another reason not to use sleep mode.

Good luck... I feel you pain.

Yay! "System Restore" worked!!

If this happens to you, keep pressing F8 while powering up to launch the screen which gives you the option to run "safe mode." When safe mode comes up, a window will ask you if you want to run de-bugging mode. Click "no" and then you will enter the "system restore" tool. At this point, you can restore your system to a specific calendar date and time.

Worked for me.

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I know you're all fixed up at this point, but I can't help but mention that while most pre-loaded computers don't come with normal Microsoft-branded OS discs, they almost always have their own "restore/recovery" disc, which is usually your copy of Windows, plus all their crapware.

Is it true that your lappy didn't come with one of those either? If not, I'd make a little phone call to the tech support and demand one.

nope... you have to create the disc yourself.. bummer

The other option is get a copy of your O/S and install it on top of your current O/S...