MacBook Pro dock and hard drive wont show up

A couple days ago on my 17" 2011 MacBook Pro, the system dock and internal hard drive icon disappeared. I've restarted a few times with no luck. I unhooked all external drives and restarted but still no luck. The baffling part is that it appears to have started up just fine - my personal wallpaper is still there on both monitors, items on the desktop are still there and I can navigate the Finder menus at the top. BUT I cannot access the internal hard drive or any external hard drives. They dont even appear to be mounting. In addition to that, the dock never shows up either.
No idea how to fix this thing or even troubleshoot it. And I really really dont want to be forced into spending time and money at the local "genius" bar.
All help is much appreciated.
thanks

Hello NC_PV,
Thank you for contacting Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like you have a couple of preferences that got switched.
For your Dock, take a look at this article:
Mac OS X: Additional features of the Dock
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2307
Command-Option-D
Hide or Show the Dock. This is equivalent of choosing Dock from the Apple menu and then Turn Hiding
On or Turn Hiding Off from the submenu.
For the HD icon, look here:
Mac OS X: Blank disc may not appear in the Finder
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3105
To show the HD on the desktop, Click on the Desktop and then from the menu bar at the top, click on Finder>Preferences>General and then select "Hard disks" under "Show these items on the desktop:"
Regards,
Jeff D.

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