Windows 10: backing up \users on crashed system

I have a system that refuses to boot to Windows 10, and I think I need to do a reinstall.
The advanced boot options is available, but it will not go into safe mode. I can however get the command line, and it recognizes both robocopy and xcopy.
Assume that C is the hard drive, and D is an external portable USB backup drive.
I've had bad luck doing "xcopy C:\users d:\backup\users /e /c /k /z" or "robocopy c:\users d:\backup\users /e /z /copyall /DCopyAT" due to the stuff in various \appdata subdirectories not wanting to copy. This has been the case since Windows XP. Heck, I haven't even tried with Windows 10 so if it's changed since 8 I wouldn't know.

I'm having a brain fart, I know they taught me back in college back when XP was new a trick for this situation, but I'm pretty sure we tossed all my notes last year when I was helping mom clean up her basement on the principal that "if you haven't used them in 20 years, you're not going to use them".

Searching online, I keep finding 3rd party solutions, but the system is broken and I'm using the emergency command line tools before I do a complete reinstall. How do I save their data because of course the user hasn't backed up anything.

Sorry, helping family and I just can't recall the correct way to back up everything. Too spoiled by good backup software.

:)

 

all games crash!

I suggest you run rthdribl > http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/rthdribl_1_2.zip
Increase the window size step by step and watch your vga temps permanently.
What happens?
If it crashes, run at stock speeds as suggested before and retry.

P.S.: When your system locks, does the display signal turn off after a time?
Stuttering sound or no sound at all when freezing?
What X1800XT model do you own exactly?

 

all games crash!

ive watch my temps and both the cpu and gpu are within normal ranges. when it freezes it simply freezes the image and stops the sound. i must reboot to get back to windows.

 

Current active users that are friends

The other reason I suggested this is that users can add characters to their username that are not alphanumeric (e.g. user*). This confuses things somewhat when looking at the list.