Travel File folder

This morning I found that my “My Documents” folder on my laptop (I use Windows 7 Home) is empty. I have no idea why. Could a virus have deleted them? I have Norton Security installed.

On a separate hard drive I have a backup, not very recent but recent enough. This was created automatically by Norton and is encrypted. I don’t know how to de-encrypt it. Nor am I able to restore it and thus get back the disappeared folders and files.

My account is “Administrator, Password Protected”. The backed-up folder in question (the one I want to access, has been assigned a padlock symbol). Previously, when I tried to delete one of these old back-ups, I couldn’t. I wasn’t asked for a password. (In any case, the only password I have is the user password I use to sign on with when I turn on the computer.) I turned off “automatic back-up” because the hard drive was filling up with masses of data I couldn’t delete.

In summary, I wish to retrieve from my detachable hard drive this set of documents. I have to de-encrypt them and get all these folders/files back on my desk-top in “My Documents.”

Also, I want to change, in any case, my “Administrator” account. Windows “Help” tells me that for day-to-day use there’s no real advantage and in fact I don’t know why I have it. Right now I see that a padlock symbol has appeared alongside all my internet shortcuts, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, etc. etc. etc. I don’t know why, except that it’s to do with being an “Administrator”. I don’t have internet access at this moment but am afraid now that I’m not going to be able to use these short-cuts and don’t know how to get rid of the symbol, the padlock, next to them all. “Help” tells me that if I want to change my account type, I must designate another user as “Administrator” but I just want to have two standard accounts.

*What on earth is going on? Within the last minute, the padlock symbol has disappeared from my desktop shortcuts. In its place is a grey cross