Lost docs etc

I hope this is the right forum for this;an application crashed, I had to restart finder which caused it to hang, I then had to power down manually. I retsarted the computer, My login name ad password worked however when my desktp came up all my desktop files were gone and my dashboard was at its default settings. My documents and pictures are gone. I ran permission and disk repair which did not help. I did not renmae my short name, it is still there however everything under it is gone. Please help.
Thx

Have a look in the Users folder - how many folders are in there?

Did you rename a <USER> folder?

No I did not delete; but I did find were they are. For some reason it looks like the OS recreated my home folder with the same user ID wth 4 sub folders. If i select the hard drice and go to shared folders ther is a folder named the same as my home directory and all my stuff is there. What is the best way to recover without corruption.
Thx