among other things, turns out my friend had a virus on
his computer that was doing this. After hooking up
another hard drive and using it to scan for viruses (btw,
the infected hard drive didn't have an anti-virus on it),
there were over 2000 infected files. Only about 150
could be fixed. There was too much damage done to the
computer to try to repair it (explorer.exe was
quarintined, thousands of files and folders created, my
docs set to be hidden). So basically if this is
happening to you, make sure that its not a virus. and
btw, and yes, i am going to shout: 1)In todays world,
its a good idea to have an antivirus installed, it only
takes one file to ruin you're computer. 2)It is EXTREAMLY
FOOLISH to be connected to the internet, without an
antivirus. and 3) IT IS JUST PLAIN F**KING STUPID TO
DOWNLOAD THINGS FROM WEBSITES, KAZAA, ect. WITHOUT AN
ANTI-VIRUS. I'm not a heavy user of Kazaa, but in the
period of one month, I usually get 1 or 2 viruses.
Luckily, Norton removes them no problem. But of the
viruses would have ruined my system if i didn't have an
Anti-virus.