[CraigDS]

Having turned my iMac off last night in the normal way (and everything being fine!) I turned it back on this morning to find my desktop cleared, a few programmes missing and all the settings in Mail gone. This is the second time this has happened in the last 6 months.

Any ideas what this could be? And any way for me to get all the stuff back?

Cheers.

[seanc]

Have you renamed your home folder (the one with the picture of a house next to it)?

[chipchen]

If you didn't rename your home folder (which this quite often is the case)... you may have someone corrupted your Library folder or have directory corruption.

Basically, or technically I should say, most likely what has happened is that your computer can no longer access your Library folder in your User folder. So, it creates a whole new set of preferences for your user. However, because you say that you're also missing the stuff on your desktop, it sounds more like it no longer has access to the whole users folder, which includes the desktop folder. If you rename your home folder, the system freaks out and builds a whole new home folder for you, but it disregards the old one... leaving everything blank.