The Start Menu & the Taskbar have disappeared!!

Optimummind

Hi,

I'm having trouble trying to get back my Start menu and Taskbar on my Desktop. Here's what happened that led to their disappearance:

Last night, I installed the beta nVIDIA 30.30 detonator drivers. It ran fine on all of my other games until it messed up on Deus Ex. (The preferred game to test new drivers for me.) So, I uninstalled it through Control Panel's Add/Remove option. When the computer restarted, I just got a blank screen. So I brought in another video card (TNT2 M64) from my older computer and plugged it in my PCI slot. When I could see again, I took the original CD from when I bought my PNY GF4 Ti-4200 and installed the 28.32's. Then, I shut down the computer, plugged the monitor cord back into the GF4 and booted.

When WinXP loaded, I could see my desktop and desktop items but the Start Menu and the Taskbar were no where to be found. Funny thing is, I cannot even access the System Info. I'm not sure what this calls for. I hope I don't have to re-install my OS b/c I've never done it before.

Help would be appreciated.

Sourcer_2002

Go into safe mode and just log on as admin and delete your identy and it should fix it.

Sourcer_2002

Have you tried pressing CTRL+ESC or the Windows Key? That should bring up your start
menu, even if the taskbar has been shoved to the bottom of the screen. If you can
get to Control Panels, then Taskbar and Start Menu, you can probably find a way to
get it back, then. If you take off "Lock the Taskbar" then you SHOULD see something
at the bottom of the screen to drag the size back up again. Other than that, I have
no clue.

Optimummind

This really sucks...if I try to go in Safe Mode, it won't...the gray bar at the bottom of the screen reaches all the way to the right and just stalls. It won't go on to the next stage where it's supposed to ask me to choose which OS to load in Safe Mode. Also, it won't respond to any keyboard inputs.

I've tried the CTRL+ESC method, but nothing.

If I want to reinstall the OS, what do I have to do? Would I lose all of my installed programs? I do have 2 hard drives. One is 30GB (where WinXP is with no partitions) and a 2nd 80GH drive with 4 partitions of 20GB each.

For now, I don't see many options since I can't go into Safe Mode and when I click on "Taskbar and Start Menu" under control panel, it won't open. Man, I should've never tried the 30.30 detonators. What a pain...

Sourcer_2002

I have no idea what happened but you can prolly save your programs by makein a back up (copy) and paste them onto the hdd the dosent have the O.S. Or boot up with your XP cd int he tray and make your cd-rom the frist boot up device and try the restore option if that dosent work then just reinstall the install will just deltele the the old O.S. directory and reinstall as long as long u back up your dll's then then it will all be there but you'll also have to redo your startr menu icon cause they'll will get erased. or if you want u could search for a Disk imager i can send u one if u want and image the drive except for the windows directory

Optimummind

Thanks, Sourcer, for your time and advice. It's working now and here's what I did:

Since I couldn't load into Safe Mode or even reach "Taskbar and StartMenu" through Control Panel, I said, "What the heck, let's experiment!" and took out the original XP CD. I double-clicked on the Setup.exe file and let it "upgrade." When the screen went blank, I kinda of freaked out but when I came back in about 30 minutes, it was just loading up. I got to the Desktop and things were still the same. But this time, the "User Accounts" option showed up under Control Panel. So, I created a new admin account and logged into that one. And, everything came back!! Even better, my System Info was accessible thru Start Menu-->Accessories which didn't work even before this trouble began. (Although it worked through Control Panel.)

Of course, I don't know if I really did FIX anything but at least it's working.

Thanks once again for your time and advice. This site rocks!!

Sourcer_2002

Glad to see that u got it fixed