Home Library folder was moved, all settings are now gone

Question

Hello all-
I'm having a serious dilemma, and could really use some help. My MacBook Pro has been having some issues lately: running slowly, constantly kicking me out of Safari for no reason & all together just acting "wrong". About a month ago after reading several posts on this and other forums I decided to download OnyX to keep my system in good order. Upon first running OnyX it told me that my start-up volume needed to be repaired before it would proceed. Scared to do this for fear of screwing something up worse, I stupidly ignored it and went about my life. Then last week my favourite freeware app, xPad, all of a sudden stopped working. This reminded me about the volume issue and I checked the volume with Disk Utility and yes, there were problems. I was told to fix it by using the install discs. I had planned on doing it later that night (though I wasn't sure how) but I thought it would be beneficial to have a copy of my "Home (Shortname) folder" before doing so, in case I screwed something else up. This is where my real problems began.
I made a burn folder of my "Home folder" but realized that the "Library" folder was somehow not in the burn folder. I can't be certain what happened from here. I know I freaked out. I put the burn folder in the trash and restarted my computer. Probably a stupid thing to do, but I admittedly have never known what to do with a burn folder if you don't want it any longer. Well, upon restart it was obvious that I had mucked something up because I was shown the blue apple screen instead of my regular desktop picture, my Dock had several question marks and everything was back to the original settings instead of my brushed metal settings. Though most of my icons were still there and the applications and documents folders seemed unharmed. I began Safari and it too was all amuck. I then took the burn folder out of the trash along with anything I found in "Recovered Files" folders, of which there where several and put them on my desktop. It seems that my Home Library Folder was indeed in the trash along with my Documents, Macintosh HD, Public and several others, plus the Burn Folder with all of the aliases to those folders minus the Library folder (if that makes any sense) & they are now all on my desktop. So now after that long rambling preface, for which I apologize, my questions are as follows:
1) If I move the Library Folder on my Desktop back to the Home(Shortname) folder will everything be all right again? i.e., applications will run correctly and find their data and life will go on as planned? Or is there something else I need to do instead?
2) After fixing this dilemma what do I do with all of the folders that are now on my desktop? Particularly my Macintosh HD, Documents, Public and Burn Folder? It seems that trashing them was where the real problems began.
3) Is it then safe to automatically try to do the reinstall via Disk Utility?
I suppose we should just start with getting this Library matter settled first. Any suggestions are welcomed and greatly appreciated. It seems I know just enough about my Mac to mess it up. So I will gladly take all the advice anyone can give. I thank you all in advance for your help.
-Angela

Answer 1

Thanks for the quick responses you guys, sorry it took me a while to get back. I did as you suggested bdkjones and all seems to be well. Unfortunately, xPad is still not working and I had hoped that the Startup Disk Repair would solve whatever issue that was, but alas it did not. I'll write the creator of that specific program to see if he has any suggestions, unless anyone else does in the meantime. But as for my prior predicament, though I haven't checked everything folder by folder yet, things seems fine so far. I truly appreciate the help. I pretty much knew what to do but just needed the encouragement of someone saying "Do this. You're on the right path. You won't ruin everything." And don't worry I'll be taking care of any future repairs as soon as I know about them from now on. It was really quite a scare for a while there.
Once again thanks and if you or anyone have any other morsels of info you feel like throwing my way about system maintenance or anything in the Mac realm you feel I should know please feel free. The last few days have made me realize I'm at that dangerous level in computer knowledge where I seem to know just enough to muck something up but not quite how to fix it.
-Angela