I have a 2 year old Sony Vaio with Windows XP. Everything was fine until two days ago. I downloaded a photo off of a PhotoShop site. It sat on my desktop not as a folder but as a 1 and a half inch by two inch photo.

As I was finishing my work, I thought I'd click the photo off by selecting the "x" in the minimize maximize off menu that formed the top border of the photo.

Unfortunately I hit something else and the photo became my wallpaper.

I forget what I did to get my original wallpaper back, but at that point, when I saw my original wallpaper back, I thought everything was fine.

I then decided to go to the start menu and use the search function.

While searching for a file, the ominous dialogue box came up saying that there was an error with the Windows Explorer end of things and did I want to report it to MicroSoft?

I did not do so then, but later on, again when trying to use "Search" I got the same message. I decided that I'd never be allowed to use Search again unless I reported it, so I ageed to do it. This triggered AOL online to start, but AOL was confused about what it considered "an unrequested URL" and
then AOL froze.

I tried everything. Could not get AOL to minimize, turn off and shut down or anything else.

So I turned the computer off. When I attempted to re-boot, the computer came up in a different manner than I have seen before. It asked as it was booting if I wanted to hit F8 for a reboot in safe mode.

Not doing that, I would get a black screen, with a small white border, a cursor AND NO WINDOWS START MENU.

I then tried turning the computer off, rebooting and choosing the safe mode. But then when it went to the new screen, it asked if I wanted to proceed the normal way, oir if I wanted to choose a method that might not preserve my recoverable data but would allow safe mode to occur.

The whole language throws me.

I am confused big time.

If I choose this second option - does that mean that all my data is lost that is on my hard drive?

WhenI turn the compuer off, my original wallpaper flawshes at me for a brief second. So I know all is not lost.

But what do I do?

Carol Dagg Sterritt

No, not necessarily. Follow this THREAD
If your system is recoverable this link will help you to.
If you are un-able to recover, then you'll need to consider other options.
However go very slowly with this, don't just jump into fdisk or reformat
just yet..

G'Luck