lost profile on windows xp (possibly on later as well)

When you get an error logging in on windows complaining that the profile is invalid, windows will attempt to create a new temporary profile.

It appears under such as

c:\Documents and Settings\<account name> not being accessible or such.

In the case encountered it got an access error.

There is an article below which explains at length how to recover.

The short of it is that one should do a System Restore.  This is under Accessories->System Tools->System Restore.

No need to remove the temp profile, unless you are tight on space.

BTW the temporary directory / profile created is TEMP

Substitute for C: above <system root> in the general case, but for most systems hopefully people had sense enough to leave it c:\  All bets are off in the case of running multiple versions, which might necessitate using a different directory.

Link to Tech Republic

how-do-i-recover-a-damaged-windows-xp-user-profile