Update:

Well... this Win7 computer has a partition on the very large harddrive....that is hidden. Because of it, the restore system discs would not run. I guess those are for new harddrive installation.

During the discussion with our son on the phone, they discovered this hidden spot, and used "image restore" from it, and now the computer is totally wiped. This must be a "reformat" feature? McAffe is now running again (it expired and we had avast on it) so next task is to do something with the virus protection. I want him to try the Microsoft Essentials Chemar recommends, but he found on Consumer Reports, that AVG was the best they tested.

Anyway my partition is gone. All the icons are gone except for 6 or 8 of them. The default wallpaper is on it. And it will connect now to the internet. He had no success with restore to a "date" prior to the crash. But neither he or my son understood this "image restore".

I know I sound incredibly dense about this, but does this mean everything is truly gone? Or is it lurking in the background, or partitioned off in the harddrive someplace?

Next task is to restore some programs. We have discs for my stuff but we don't know if Word was lost, yet. Word came already installed. So hubby is going to futz with the backup and see what comes back. He thinks he made a clone in the beginning. But he seems relieved that at least he got on the net.

I guess when this computer --the old Dell tower/desktop "goes" to cyber heaven, I will get a new one JUST FOR ME! I don't think I'll ever understand Win 7 or by the time I do it, Win 8. Maybe I should get a MAC like my son nags me to do?