I rarely use my laptop, which I got five years ago for college. I only turned it on a couple of times last year. The last time, it was extremely slow, and in a rush, I might have slapped the keyboard a bit too hard on the touchpad area. I remember it shut down immediately after. When I restarted it a month later, the usual background was replaced with a default one, and all my desktop icons and files were missing. The keyboard is acting up too—the shift and 2 keys don’t produce an ‘@’ but a quotation mark instead. I tried updating drivers, but no luck. Chrome asks for my login details, but I can’t type my email since the ‘@’ key doesn’t work. It seems like my files are still on the laptop though. Any thoughts on what might have caused this? Did I damage it?
My first guess is that the impact might have loosened an internal cable. You could check it yourself by opening up the laptop, but since hitting it was part of the problem, maybe get someone to help you with that.
Try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Up arrow, see if that helps.
Paxton said:
Try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Up arrow, see if that helps.
I initially thought that would work too, but it seems it’s not effective on all devices anymore, possibly due to driver updates, and it’s not quite right for a laptop anyway.
@Fane
I was just kidding 
Paxton said:
Try pressing Ctrl+Alt+Up arrow, see if that helps.
I tried that, but nothing changed.
It sounds like you’re logging into a temporary user profile. Have you tried restarting your laptop?
Hadi said:
It sounds like you’re logging into a temporary user profile. Have you tried restarting your laptop?
Yes, I’ve rebooted several times, but there’s no change.
For the icons and wallpaper disappearing, it could be a sign of a hard drive issue. For the keyboard, it sounds like a hardware problem as well.
Vic said:
For the icons and wallpaper disappearing, it could be a sign of a hard drive issue. For the keyboard, it sounds like a hardware problem as well.
I suspect the HDD cable might be loose, especially if there’s more than one storage device inside.
Vic said:
For the icons and wallpaper disappearing, it could be a sign of a hard drive issue. For the keyboard, it sounds like a hardware problem as well.
Probably, especially since I got an ‘Oops something went wrong’ error after the incident. Thanks for the suggestion!
@Ben
If you’re up for it, try watching some teardown videos online to see how to access the hard drive. Check the connections carefully. If you have more than one drive, you might be lucky and find it’s just disconnected.
@Jordy
I tried opening it up, but I stripped a screw so badly I couldn’t get it out. Ended up putting the others back in. I’m too frustrated right now, will take it to a technician.
Ben said:
@Jordy
I tried opening it up, but I stripped a screw so badly I couldn’t get it out. Ended up putting the others back in. I’m too frustrated right now, will take it to a technician.
I feel your pain. Had a similar issue with my old laptop. I managed to rotate the cover enough to check everything without fully removing it.
Looks like those keys might be broken. You could try using the on-screen keyboard feature on Windows 10. Not sure how to turn it on off the top of my head, but a quick search should show you.