Need Mac help!!!

[matt_london1]

Hi
I have just switched my Mac Mini on this morning and there is a major problem with it.

I have no dock;
No Finder;
My desktop wallpaper is gone;
My Expose corners don't work.
I can't minimize anything.

The only way to open applications is search for them in Spotlight.

I have gone into System preferences to set everything up again but the dock settings are correct, ie it is not hidden.

The wallpaper picture that I normally display is already selected and should therefore be showing, and when I try to set up active corners in expose I am unable to select any of the options from the drop down menu.

I have tried re-booting but this doesn't work.
I have logged in as a different user and that account is also suffering from excactly the same problem.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[fo3nix]

Sounds potentially serious.

Make a backup ASAP of everything you can (hopefully one already exists), and ask at Apple's own support forums.

[Twenty20]

Have you tried using Disk Utility? It's usually in Applications/Utilities. Click on Repair Disk Permissions and let that run, it may fix your problems.

Alternatively, reload the system software from the CD/DVD that came with your Mac. You should be able to do a restore and keep all your existing applications etc.

[fo3nix]

To repair disk permissions as the above suggests, boot from your Mac OS X disc.

Load the disc, restart your computer, and once it begins to restart, hold down the letter C. This will cause it to boot to the DVD.

Now, before you go reinstalling everything, choose Disk Utility from the menu bar (in Tools menu, but I forget).

Choose your startup disk, and verify then repair the disk.

This may not help though; it depends on the problem.

[matt_london1]

Thanks for your help. I sorted it with an Archive and Install.
Now though I seem to have loads more stuff running in Activity Monitor - such as:

Speech Synthesiser
mds
mdimport
universal access
lookupd
+ loads more
all using between 8 and 1 mb of Ram. I don't remember seeing them before, or if I did they certainly weren't using so much memory.
Any idea what they are?

[fo3nix]

lookupd, mds, mdimport should all be running. Required daemons.

UniversalAccessApp is running on mine too, pretty sure it's required for something or other.

All the entries without icons next to them are mostly daemons, running in the background to keep Mac OS X going. They would have been there before, and they should be there now.

I don't have speech synthesis, but that could be because you have it enabled in System Preferences? In Speech, turn speakable items off.