hi people i have made a stupid mistake and i expect the worst..... i didnt realise b4 hand but some 1 turned off recycly bin from holding the trash and now it just get deleted from the pc. now my question is i had some very importand photos on my pc and for some reason they were deleted from the folder they were in and they are not in my digital camera anymore either. problem is as i said my recycle bin just deletes it automatically. now how do i go about restoring them if possible. i have just discovered another problem and that is all the items on my quick launch bar just open the properties page when i click on them?????? how do i fix all these problems. one last thing is i have turned off my system restore weeks ago cause i was told that trojans and other viruses use it to stop it from being deleted so i cant restore niether? PLEASE HELP ME I BEG YOU..... win xp amd 2000+ 40gig hard drive 256 ram the irish will make mince meat from hackers

Lets work on the photo's 1st . Digital camera http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/smartrecovery.html Requirements Windows 98/Me/2000/XP Supported cards: Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory stick, Secure Digital Card, Microdrive, Multimedia Card. Digital camera technology makes it easy to erase photos whenever you need. Unfortunately, it can also mean accidentally deleting images you want to keep or transfer. Some cameras can occasionally get confused and reset the card to show 'no images', even though the files are still there. If you act quickly, it is possible to recover lost photographs from most digital memory cards. Smart Recovery can also help reconstruct data files after a card has been formatted. All you do is download and install the program on the computer. Follow the simple steps and - fingers crossed - the photographs can be recovered. Smart Recovery supports the following picture formats: .jpg, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, Canon .crw, Fuji .raf, Olympus .orf (E-XX), Olympus .orf (C5050), Kodak .dcr, Minolta .mrw, Nikon .nef (D1H/D1X), Nikon .nef (E5000/E5700), Sigma - Foveon .x3f. Plus Video files in .avi, QuickTime .mov format and audio files in .wav or .dss formats. Most digital card formats are supported including Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory stick, Secure Digital Card, Microdrive, Multimedia Card and Microsoft pocket. Since Smart Recovery only reads the card, you can try it on card types not listed here. As long as you have a card reader or camera that creates a 'logical drive', it should work. Smart Recovery is free (freeware), so it is worth downloading and keeping for emergencies. ======================================= Restoration http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html http://www.collina.us/files/REST2514.htm http://www.all-freeware.com/ http://hccweb1.bai.ne.jp/~hcj58401/ http://web.telecom.cz/vlaso/cestiny/pr_/restor2514.htm http://www.pricelessware.org/2003/PL2003FILEUTILITIES.htm http://www.sover.net/~wysiwygx/WinUtils4.html Restoration is an easy to use and straight forward tool to undelete files that were removed from the recycle bin or directly deleted from within Windows, and we were also able to recover photos from a Flash card that had been formatted. Upon start, you can scan for all files that may be recovered and also limit the results by entering a search term or extension. In addition, it also provides the option to wipe the found files beyond simple recovery. The program is small and standalone, it does not require installation and can also run from a Floppy disk. Restoration works with FAT and NTFS as well as digital cameras cards. [OS] Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows Me Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP [Platform] IBM-PC/AT Compatible PC . =================================== PC INSPECTOR™smart recovery http://www.pcinspector.de/smart_media_recovery/uk/welcome.htm is the new data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card™, Smart Media™, SONY Memory Stick™, IBM™ Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.. If you have unintentionally deleted or formatted pictures, videos or sound files on your data carrier or have pulled it out during a write operation, no matter - PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery can easily, quickly and absolutely reliably reconstruct the lost data. Using the software is child's play. PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery runs on all Win 9x, ME, NT 4.0, XP and Windows™ 2000 systems. PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery the software with which you can recover your holiday pictures in seconds after unintentional deletion or a system error. PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery is also available bundled with many high-quality digital cameras - ask your salesperson. * PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery supports the following picture formats: .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .gif, Canon .crw , Fuji .raf , RICOH .raw, Olympus .orf (E-XX), Olympus .orf (C5050), Kodak .dcr, Minolta .mrw, Nikon .nef (D1H/D1X), Nikon .nef (E5000/E5700), Sigma - Foveon .x3f. Video files in .avi, QuickTime .mov format and audio files in .wav, .dss format can also be recovered.

yeah thanks mate but all my quick launch items are not opening they just go into properties can you possible help me with that???????? and thanks for that other stuff worked a charm win xp amd 2000+ 40gig hard drive 256 ram the irish will make mince meat from hackers

See if this works . Quick Launch - Icons (Arrange) http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_qr.htm Right click the Quick Launch tool bar and choose Open Folder. Right click in the right pane and choose Arrange Icons by. Quick Launch - Missing or Doesn't Function Properly This behavior can occur if the Quick Launch folder has been deleted. To resolve this issue, recreate the Quick Launch folder. Create a folder named Quick Launch at the following location: C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ Quick Launch Toolbar Becomes A Floating Palette By default, the Quick Launch toolbar is right next to the Start button. But if you've added so many shortcuts to this toolbar, you can't see them all, you may wish to make it a floating palette. Then you'll have instant access to these shortcuts without unnecessary scrolling. Click the left edge of the Quick Launch toolbar, drag it out to a blank area on the desktop, and let go. (Note: If your taskbar is locked, the toolbar won't move.) You can resize the resulting palette as you would any window: Hold your mouse pointer over its edge, and when the pointer changes to a double-pointed arrow, click and drag in any direction. To ensure that your palette is never out of sight, right-click its title bar and select Always on Top.

Once you get all the bugs out & you are clean ( no virii or spyfiles ) turn System Restore back on , you only turn it off when you are trying to get it clean . Set it on Minimum .

System Restore isn't what it's cracked up to be. If the registry is corrupted it ain't gonna work anyway. A better solution is to download and run a program called ERUNT. That will do a far better job and is not a bloated resource hog that System Restore is.

HI Justme, Now that you've mentioned Lars Hederer's ERUNT, did you know that if NTFS is your XP file system, you will need to have Bart's PE Builder in the event your Windows fail to load due to corrupted registry? In any case Erunt includes autoupdate of your changed registry. The problem is you have to remember to do it whereas XP System Restore does it automatically. i_XpUser