can this be done?. Some sort of a glitch corrupted the OS (XP) forcing a reinstall. recovery consol wasn't used and the repaireer attempted to recopy windows back ontop of windows. The problem being a lot of important files were saved onto the desktop which the new OS has replaced. I know this is the case because the shortcuts to the missing files show up in documents and settings/my most recent documents. Unfortunately, if the user had have saved his/her files to a different folder on the hard drive they would still have remained intact. Thanks