Where is ... EVERYTHING??

When I turn on the computer all I get is the background and my mouse pointer, there are no icons, no toolbar, and I am unable to do anything at all with the screen. It wont respond at all to me clicking the mouse ( right ot left buttons ) .

I have checked all power cords and cables and they are plugged in ok.

Thank you

This question was answered on January 9, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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The only place I could find reference to a problem such as yours involved a situation that occurred following a Windows ME upgrade In the case of the other user, uninstalling ME put the PC back on course.

I see by your profile, you have an HP machine, so you probably also have restore disks The restore disks are probably your only way back from this PC Land of the Lost.

But first, try starting in Safe Mode Maybe you can produce something of a display Hit F8 repeatedly during startup to get to Safe Mode, but keep your expectations low.

Clicking and dragging around the outside edges of your blank desktop may result in producing a hidden start menu Hitting Ctrl Esc may also produce a start menu.

Or not.

This is a pretty unique problem, and may need the attention of someone capable of saving any critical data on the drive Booting to DOS is a viable, though time-consuming way to cull data from a floundering computer A DOS boot disk can be created on another PC if you don't already have one around Emergency Rescue Disks are a better idea, should you have them Write protect the boot floppy to protect from possible virus infection.

Following data retrieval, frankly, I would simply fdisk the PC and reinstall the whole shebang

This is a "lost weekend" type of problem, if ever I heard of one Unfortunately, something about your computer has gone terribly wrong

Have courage.

RG

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Posted by Robert of Mesa Community College on January 9, 2003

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