Multimedia card reader error

[jimmy4802]

please help. 3 yr old Gateway w/ win XP Pro. Last week I ran a Defrag. My kids may have closed down the puter when it was done but when I started it up the next day i got this "MultiMedia Card Reader" error in the middle of the screen. My icons take a long time to come onto the screen, I have no Start menu or toolbar at the bottom, and Internet Explorer only "blinks" one time and won't get online at all. I tried first to do a SYSTEM RESTORE but it comes up and says not able to protect your computer and try to restart. does this over and over.There was a time I had the option to do a SYSTEM RECOVERY but i didn't do it, Should I??? I can't get online with that computer. I downloaded and burned BitDefender,, Avira, and G Data from my laptop, but could only get BitDefender to run a scan. It came up with 34 errors and after that I still have the same problem. All my documents, photos, etc are still there and I don't want to loose them. I fired it up in SAFE MODE and get the same results? suggestions are very much appreciated.

[Polkadot]

It sounds like your kids shut it down while it was running, not after it finished. You will need to run recovery software to save docs/pics before you do System Recovery. It appears that Windows is unable to find system files that may have been in the defrag mode before the system was shut down. The 'road map' to those files is corrupted now.