Why wont Boot disk restore won’t fix corrupted profile?

David, welcome to these User Forums.

Any recovery / restore of a Full disk & partitions backup from your Windows 10 OS drive should resolve any user profile issues - provided that the issue was not already present when the backup being used was created.

When doing such a recovery, please ensure that you are not starting from a hybrid sleep state as happens when Windows Fast Startup is enabled.  You should ensure that you have done a full shutdown of Windows before doing the recovery, or else have done a Restart which will effect the same if you then restart using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media.

The other approach here that I have used a number of times is to create a new Windows profile for yourself - login to that new profile to build all the desktop and user folder structures, then copy all your user data across to the new profile, i.e. documents, music, pictures etc.  Test that all is working with the new profile, then delete the old, corrupted profile.

Thanks very much for your fast response. I’ve done all of my recoveries after restart. Profile seems ok at first but quickly acts up. I’m going to try disconnecting external drives and temporarily disabling my second internal drive in case something’s lurking there. It may be due to windows automatic update plus other auto updating software which I can prevent temporarily by turning off wifi. The problem started a week ago and I’ve restored from archives as far back as three weeks before that with the same result - both full disk and partition, restoring mbr and disk signature eqch time.

I made a new admin profile and copied my files but it’s hard setting up software eg sonar, etc the way they were before. I have to locate the license info, etc. I’m bewildered because for many years when things get fouled up I’ve always been able to restore from an archive without problems. 

Thanks

David, I can only suggest the normal things to do here:

Run SFC /SCANNOW to check the integrity of your OS files & programs etc.

Run CHKDSK /R to check for any file system issues on the OS drive.

Trying running a Windows Memory diagnostic to ensure you don't have a failing memory module.

Check the Windows event logs for any evidence of any serious errors being logged.

When I had roughly similar problems, it turned out to be a problem with one of my disks. The system just kept going into trances, and eventually would get tied into knots. Fortunately for me, I had a mirrored system; so I could disconnect one drive at a time and experiment.

If you don't have that luxury, at least check to see if your drive activity light is acting strange: always on, on for a minute then off for a few seconds, and that sort of thing.

Believe it or not, I had a roughly similar problem that turned out to be a problem with Firefox. It seemed improbable, but I noticed that Firefox was throwing errors. I uninstalled it, ad the problem went away.

Thank you both for helping me out. I’ve tried sfc and chkdisk. I’ll check event viewer again but although I see errors, Windows doesn’t tell me which software is causing them - many have event names without a publisher I can connect to particular software. I may have to find a utility with easier to read results. 

I experimented and found that the profile is fine until I connect to the internet. At least I isolated one thing.  Even with Windows updates paused it occurs. So maybe I can find a utility to tell me what software updates the moment I connect. 

So, Acronis is working fine - doing what it should do.  I shouldn’t waste more of your time.  I can always use the new profile if I can’t hunt down the issue. I appreciate you guys helping out a stranger in need!  I may follow up later with a solution to help anyone in the future having the same problem. Have a good one. 

Dave 

Dave, one last thought, consider doing an offline antivirus scan of your computer using such as the AVG Rescue CD (which can be created as a CD or a USB stick - 2GB or larger).  I tend to keep this on a USB stick that I boot from occasionally and update the virus definitions before using it in anger where strange behaviour might suggest possible malware.

Not sure if this will help but have a look at the Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 Fix in this LINK

Thanks for the tips. I spent a few more days stuggling with it but no joy. As soon as any program connected to the web, profile screwed up and wouldn’t let me sign out. As a hail mary pass I downoaded the first profile copy utilty Google showed ne: Forensit. And it was free!  And it worked. OMG. I had to enter a few email passwords, set some default apps, and activate Sonar, but quite painless. :)

Dave, glad to read that you have a solution to this strange issue - thanks for sharing about the Forensit utility (have bookmarked the site!).