Restore MacBook Pro

I have a MacBook Pro from 2006 with OS 10.4.11.
When I turned it on recently, all settings were gone, and so were most of my installed programs as well as most documents. It looks like it has restored itself to a previous setting, perhaps the factory setting.
Can anyone explain what has happened? And more important, how to turn it back to the setting with all my programs and documents?
(I did back up recently but it is a lot of work to install all programs again)
Thank you!

Before you try to reset everything, I suggest doing a hardware check on the machine first. Boot your MBP with the original Tiger DVD and run a verify and repair using Disk Utility. You should also run the Apple Hardware Test.

Since your machine is over four years old, it's possible the hard drive is failing.

Thank you.
Could you perhaps specify "Boot your MBP with the original Tiger DVD and run a verify and repair using Disk Utility. You should also run the Apple Hardware Test" since I don't know how to do that :Blushing:

Sure. To do a verify and repair on the hard drive, you need to boot from your Tiger DVD. Then select Disk Utility from the top menu and run verify and repair for the hard drive.

The Apple Hardware Test is also a good test to run. See this LINK.

If you need more assistance, post back to this same thread.