I deleted the "audio" folder in my HD library preferences, now my computer doesn't work right.  Imagine that.

I recently clean installed Mountain Lion on my mac mini and I was unable to switch between my HDMI output and the headphone port in sound preferences.  If the headphones were plugged in it wouldn't let me switch to HDMI.  I read a thread where someone suggested deleting the audio folder in preferences.  Like an idiot, I went ahead and did it.  Now my computer's all screwed up.  Audio Midi Setup gives me the pinwheel-of-death and I have to force quit.  I also get the pinwheel when I mouse over the stuff in the top right corner of the screen.  A lot of stuff is giving me the pinwheel.
How can I fix this?

OOH...  In the nick of time.  I was getting ready to nuke it from orbit(clean reinstall).  Lucky you chimed in when you did.  Running the installer should be considerably faster than wiping the HD.
I put ML on a usb drive.  Does this mean I just go into the thumb drive and click on Install OSX Mountain Lion?

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