Looks like he got hit with an issue in User Profiles Enhancements for WS2003/XP, namely that the local guest account is deleted on logoff when the computer is part of a domain (it used to always be deleted). Was the laptop part of a domain? Can he recover those lost files? The likelehood is that he logged back in again as the guest user, scribbling enough information back onto the hard drive to lose the files forever.
Yeah, it's f*cked. The laptop was a member of a domain but the user was logged in with a local guest account. Effin eejit of a helper closed the laptop lid, which of course logged it off or put it in hybernation whatever. Tried a few recover utilities and no joy. Last time I ever do a last minute favour for a mgr. Indeed I tried Norton Systemworks which was complete Pants on my pc with the laptop drive as a slave. Norton GoBack has now farked my boot drive (a sata mirror) and now have to boot using a bootcd and tell it to indeed boot from the mirror. What a crap product!