Help! - All icons on desktop & sidebar have disappeared!

I've been sorting out some files & folders, renaming stuff, that kind of thing. But, for no apparent reason, suddenly all the icons in the folder I was looking in disappeared. Shortly afterwards, all the icons on the desktop disappeared, followed by the icons in the sidebar in the finder. - They are not deleted, I just couldn't see them.
After I accidentally nocked the computer, they came back. I repaired permissions, restarted, and everything was fine except the icons did NOT come back in the sidebar. - All that is there is Desktop, my name, and Applications. - Stuff like Library, Documents etc. have vanished. - I can get to them by going another route, but I can't get them back. (I can still see the sidebar fine).
Even when I went to the Sidebar preferences, the missing folders were not there to be ticked. I have deleted the relevant preference files (as I read in other posts), logged out, but it didn't change anything.
I have NOT installed any new stuff lately, no software updates or anything. I did download some zip files, but their source is reliable and I trust them. I was listening to a copy-protected CD earlier, but I doubt that has anything to do with it.
But the most worrying thing is, just now there were signs of the same thing happening again! - The icons in the folder I was looking in disappeared!
What should I do? - Is this a symptom of a bigger problem?
Thanks, all help is appreciated.

Well it looks like people are either unwilling or unable to help me, but in case anyone has a similar trouble in the future, here's what I did:
I went to System Preferences > Accounts, and created another account. - I then logged into this new account, and everything was fine. So, I copied the following files from Library > Preferences and pasted them into my original account in the same place (over-writing the previous files). (You need to copy them to the Applications folder first, or somewhere that is visable on all accounts). After logging out and in again, everything was fine in the original account. (Although I had to change a few things to get things back how I like them). The files to copy are:
com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
com.apple.finder.plist
My only worry now is that this is just putting a temporary patch on a symptom, and that some underlying problem still remains, ready to rear its ugly head at any opportunity. - Only time will tell I guess. In the mean time, everything is as it should be, and nothing seems to have been permanently lost.

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Help! - All icons on desktop & sidebar have disappeared!

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