eGads, guys. I dunno what to do! Windows XP did a giant flip on me! Starting from the top -- My roomie rebooted the internet, i was attached to the system at the time, apparently my computer didnt like it and wouldnt read the net coming in afterwards. So, i go to shut down, reboot and all that goodness which normally would fix a problem like this. Well, it decides it doesnt understand what Shut Down Meant. Okay, so i manually shut her down (btw, this is a laptop, Inspiron 9200) at any rate, i manually shut her down, wait a few minutes to let her cool off and then restart her. When i do, i go to put in my password and the dern thing gets stuck. So, i take a deep breath, shut her down again, go smoke a ciggarette so i dont harp on the situation, and i restart when i come back. This time, it takes a couple seconds longer then normal BUT my computer does indeed start up and run fine.

 

Except that it's reverted back to original XP style. ALl my settings seem to have been reset. Even everything, well most everything, on my desktop is freaking gone. Now, i check in the desktop folder and everything is still very much there. It just wont show up.

 

I dunno what to do, or what  freaking happened! I've restarted a couple times, nothing seems to fix it. I'm an internet freak but i'm not really much of a computer techie (i should be at the rate and time i spend on this dern thing) but man oh man, this is annoying me no end. Took me a while to get my computer looking and doing exactly what i want. and i want all that back.

 

Any advice for me, guys?

 

Nikki