All my "Favourites" and cookies are gone!

When I switched on my laptop this morning, all the IE Favourites are gone. I had to log on to AAM, so it looks like my cookies are gone too; McAfee Anti Virus went into a download routine i did not see before.

Also, I am getting an error message when opening a new web page: "C:\Documents and Settings\Local service.NT AUTHORITY\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable".

Have I a virus?
Can I recover the favourites, 'cos there were a few very useful sites there?

Thank you.

Have you installed anything recently? Any programs, or OS patches?
Can you restore your last known profile?
or....
Open windows explorer, open "c:\documents and settings\<your username>\Favorites" to see if the favorites are still there and you should be able to import them to IE or mozilla.

Thanks, car. I seem to have restored them, not quite sure how I did it. I hate it when these things happen, it always makes me think the PC is getting old and is about to die.

Slash said:

it always makes me think the PC is getting old and is about to die.

Click to expand...

Perhaps a clean reinstall might help improve matters. Back up any user data and make sure that you have installation media for all required applications first though.