Desktop icons gone!

WinXP Pro SP2. Something has happened to the user account profile info. All the icons that should be on the desktop have vanished and have been replaced by what appears to be the standard icons that would be there if the PC had just done a system recovery from a factory partition (there's AOL icons, and Norton trial icons, Hallmark Card Studio icons, etc). But, if I enable the viewing of hidden files and folders, and go to C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Desktop all the folders and icons that were there are still there, but for some reason they aren't on the desktop. How do I revert the PC to use this 'Desktop' folder, and not the one it's using now? I'm still plunking around around with this, so I just might get it figured out between now and then, but if someone knows of a quick-n-easy fix, I'm all ears!

Thanks!

(I already tried a system restore and it was unable to finish: "Restore Incomplete". And when the PC is booted up, there's a window that says something about the user profile could not be loaded and it has a countdown from 30, and if you don't click OK, the PC reboots. I'm trying to get a screen shot of it, but haven't been successful so far).

 

The window at boot up says "Windows could not load the local profile...." and then goes on to say that it may be corrupt....

For some reason, the default user account has been switched from "User" which is the main admin account, to "All Users". How? And how do I switch it back?
:confused :banghead

 

Would there be any record of the issue in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer? It might give clue...

To open Event Viewer, follow these steps: 1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.
2. In the console tree, click Event Viewer.

The Application, Security, and System logs are displayed in the Event Viewer window.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

 

This thread here seems to have a sensible suggestion. Move all personal folders and create a new user-profile. It's not very time consuming in most cases. Link: http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=274818&messageID=2648497

Also a few suggestions here: http://www.techsupportforum.com/mic...s-profile-but-has-logged-default-profile.html

 

You get your admin privileges back by running this tool. But don't enable All Users as admins! http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_admin_ok.htm

 

thanks for the link but it doesnt help me. and just a suggestion, have you tried opening the desktop as a folder, and the desktop you want displayed in another, and just moving the desired items over?

 

So here's an update- I looked through the Event Viewer to try to find what may have caused this fiasco and I see a whole line of red X's with one word.... "disk". So I looked at the properties of it and it says "disk error disk(0) - bad block". And there's probably 100 or more of these red X's. So I ran a low level drive diagnostic (after backing up all docs and data required by the PCs owner), and sure enough.... "One or more corrupted sectors have been found...." So that's what started all this. Luckily the PCs owner caught it before things got worse. A lot of folks put off fixing their PCs until they don't boot any more, or they wait until it's so slow as to be unuseable, or their data becomes unaccessible. They wait, thinking it will get better on its own, or "I can still get online and use Word, so it's OK; the error is not a big deal", or the family/neighborhood computer 'expert' says they can fix it (and they usually make things worse). She did the right thing, and because of it, over 3gb of data is now safe.

[dlb]

(thanks to everyone that offered suggestions, links, help, and advice; I do appreciate it)

:major