My XP Home User Account seems to have disappeared! help!

Howdy All, first post.
Okay, I was working on my computer and i logeed into my account, and it was taking forever, staying on the blue screen with the windows logo and all, when a little pop up popped up saying that i was out of space or something and that my account could not be opened. I got spooked, was stupid enough not to write the error down, then turned the computer off. When it restarted, i opened my account without a hitch, except for the slight problem that everything on my desktop and everything was gone. All of my files still exist and are accessible from the /documents and settings/steve/desktop folder. At first my new desktop was located in the c://documents and settings/TEMP/ folder, but then i had the "bright" idea of erasing everything in temp and seeing if it would revert to ...setting/steve. But it didnt. It just created a whole new account in the c://www.documents and settings/Steve.HP-ATHLON1600 folder.

So basically, how the heck do i restore a user account, and make my friggin computer stop building new ones?

And please, dont say that the only solution is to copy all the /steve files to the /Steve.HP-ATHLON1600 folder. my poor registry... my poor style XP settings!

ANY help is MUCH appreciated! im embarassed to even have to ask! thank you!

 

Oh, and i had plenty of space left. 1.2 gigs.

 

I am having the same exact problem that happened yesterday... anxiously seeking an answer also... I'll let you know what I find out

 

try a system restore to an earlier date