Please help. Messed up my computer. Windows XP Problem

26 April 2011 | Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Dear Computer-wise Freepers,

I was messing around with my computer and have deleted something very serious. I now only have the "My Computer" icon and the "Recycle Bin" icons on my desktop. My wife's and my accounts were on this computer and it is the same issue with her desktop. My program folders are still there and can been by going to My Documents through another route. I can not send an icon to the desktop of any program though. In control panel, I can not go to "My programs" -- nothing shows. Can anyone help me reverse this disaster? Thanks. (Using another computer on the network which still allows me to access everything.

[library user]

Oops. My link was bad.

http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/unhide.exe

[Dilbert56]

My parents’ machine had that happen. There’s actually a way to turn off the displaying of icons on the desktop.

To resolve this behavior, turn on the Show Desktop Icons feature:
Right-click the desktop.
Point to Arrange Icons By.
Click Show Desktop Icons.

[Marine_Uncle]

Just be careful of any advice you get here. I assume you have not in the past created recovery disks, did any backups or have gone through the trouble of creating "restore points" where one in essence has the system save a lot of critical files required to maintain say your desktop attributes.
If this is the case I cannot offer you any help in how to restore to an earlier backup.
You may be best served to just pay say a Geek Squad employee that operates out of the BestBuy chain of stores, to come in and see what they can do. It sounds like you will need quite a bit of fixing done.
BUT. Since you still have the recycle Bin Icon showing. Right mouse click on it, choose Open and if you get the explore window coming up showing a lot of files. Carefully look for in the top area of the explorer window for the option Restore all Items. Then reboot your system. Beyond that, it can get hairy. What the action I suggest will do is put back all files that you have been deleting. Whenever you delete a file, it goes to that directory named recycle. So the file is still on your system. If you never have done this before you will find tons of stuff in that directory.
By restoring the files to their original directories you will upon rebooting find things have changed on your system.
One last note. If this can bail you out for the most part. Do remember. From now on. When you delete a file. Then right click on the recycle icon on your desktop. Decide if you really want to trash the file(s) forever.
Hope this helps you.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Found this way via the internet on the other computer on the network. Got my icons and programs back, but can’t find “My Documents” and my “Favorites” are gone from my browser. Wondering how I managed to delete everything.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

This would be a good time to back up your files.

Well, that's another issue. Can't get my 300GB Maxtor drive back online. I saved a lot of stuff to it. It beeps like it's there, but doesn't doesn't show up under Windows Explorer. What a mess.

[decimon]

Depending on what you've done, or do from here, you may find your old My Documents in a saved user account in Documents and Settings.

[Berlin_Freeper]

trouble shooting

[library user]

Got my icons and programs back, but can’t find “My Documents” and my “Favorites” are gone from my browser.

If you do a system restore, as mentioned above, you should get all those things back.

[allmost]

Follow post #18. Try last good configuration if available. If not boot as best you can and hit the windows key on your keyboard, if no key, hit tab until start highlights. From the start menu highlight run. Type cmd. Inside that box type ‘sfc /scannow’. Hit enter.

[eyedigress]

get a copy of combofix from bleeping computer. turn off your anti-viral stuff and run it. This is a very powerful program that needs to run independent of AV software. Disconnet from the internet.

[BushCountry]

Well, good. The method I shown works when all else fails, I just use it first.

Your document folder is most likely still there. Use the search function to find *.doc or *.xls or *.jpg, etc... whichever type document is the most popular in your document folder. Once a string of familiar file types show up, right click to find the folder location. Make a shortcut to this folder on your desktop and you’re done.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Thanks for everyone’s help. I deleted some dlls somehow and I’m sure that is what caused it. Finally got everything back together. It is indeed stressful. Thank you everyone. I love Free Republic.

[GreatOne]

Glad to hear you got everything back. Please let everyone know how you resolved your problem. Thanks.