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mostly whats disappeared are folders I have created with my stuff in. I see my external hard drive icon has gone as well. Nothing else seems to be behaving strangely.

could it be a virus, everything was alright until I uninstalled the viewer.

should I reinstall the viewer again.

No, don't reinstall the viewer. It's always possible that it is a virus (and I assume you have run a scan to check) but people usually blame a virus when it is actually something entirely different. I take it your external HD is connected via USB or is it a network drive?

The first thing to do is establish that the folders are still there even though you may not be able to see them. Were they shortcuts on the desktop or actual folders?

no I haven't run a scan, and the folders were ones I had actually created.

external hard drive connected by usb

ok first off do a search for one of the folders - are you confident in doing this?

Might be worth running a background scan at the same time.

no how do you search for folders. I tried a search within folders, is that different.

ok open up the search function from your Start menu and on the left side of the box that opens follow the prompts - ask if you are unsure. I'm trying to do this from memory because I am not currently booted into Windows so if the going gets tough I'll boot up a Windows machine so I can talk you through step by step

Found this while googling


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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Missing Desktop Icons and Taskbar #1 Aug 28th, 2005
Hello all,
I am new here, so please be gentle if I am posting in the wrong forum. I have Win XP PRO SP2. Almost a week ago, my desktop icons and taskbar disappeared upon booting. I was able to get them back by using control alt delete and running explorer.exe. Today, the same thing happened again upon booting. This time, however, explorer will not run. It appears for about a second in the running processes and then disappears. I have run three different virus/trojan/worm scans with different programs. Nothing was found. I ran Adaware and deleted any spyware. I have spent the whole day today googling for a fix, but my mind has just melted and can't seem to figure out what to do next. Help me, I'm drowning,
Thanks,
Very frustrated Caron

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Join Date: Aug 2005
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Re: Missing Desktop Icons and Taskbar #2 Aug 29th, 2005
Hello there,

This is actually quite simple to fix if you have system restore activated. What has likely happened is that a key in your registry is corrupt. Anyways, here are the steps to fix it.

1. Reboot your computer, and tap the F8 Key while booting to bring up the boot up menu.
2. From the menu, select "Safe mode with command prompt".
3. Now type \Windows\system32\restore\rstrui.exe into the command prompt.

This will allow you to revert back to sometime when your computer was working fine before

why do you think it wouldn't let me system restore

Weren't you having problems with System Restore?

Is System Restore switched on?

I had never tried system restore before, how do you mean switched on, if so how do you do that.

Did it allow you to choose a restore date/time? If so then it is switched on.

just tried searching for one of the folders I know is missing and it didn't reveal itself

The answer from daniweb is quite correct in that it could be a corrupt registry key.

ok next check to see if it is in your Recycle Bin.

no none of the folders in the recycle bin.