User profile service service failed the login. User Profile can not be loaded

Question

I removed accounts that were hosted on a separate drive before upgrading to windows 8 from 7 yesterday. However, now I get the User profile service service failed the login. User Profile can not be loaded. error whenever I try to access any new account.

I've attempted it:

• from safe mode
• (suggestions here )
• net user test \ADD
• Editing the permissions on the %sysdrive%\Users\Default folder to ensure it is readable

Every attempt is met with the same error. Additionally, I do not see any new entries created in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList registry entry.

I'm not sure I understand why a failed user creation wouldn't trigger an error... but that seems to be what is happening here.

EDIT: I'm continuing to track this down and found a suggestion to see the caused error by running runas.

I tried it:

 C:\Windows\system32>runas /user:Test dir
 Enter the password for Test:
 Attempting to start dir as user "KELSO\Test" ...
 RUNAS ERROR: Unable to run - dir
 3: The system cannot find the path specified.

This same command opens a new CMD window with the output for my own user.

I've also found the following details in the Event Log hosted via Dropbox: here