Mac Issue.

I am having a problem with my Powerbook, OS 10.4. That is, everything works except for the Finder and the desktop icons, folders don't appear. This seems very odd as everything else seems fine--I'm using the internet right now--and all my files are intact, but the finder just doesn't come up nor do the desktop items. Does anyone have any experience? I went to the Apple Store and their so-called Genius Bar, but they were entirely incompetent as expected.

The problem is that the Finder and its associated things do not open in any form while all the toolbar programs run fine.

The dock works fine as does the Spotlight function. Everything but the Finder, and desktop icons which have disappeared.

Firefox.

Yes.

No; I also did Disk Utility Verify, which found some errors and corrected them, but no changes. I also did Verify Permissions, and deleted the finder.plist file. Alternatively I could reinstall the whole thing, but I would need to back up some of my files first; but I don't know how to do that without the Finder.

I did it both--from the Spotlight and also through the Apple CD at the beginning of starting the machine.

Yes, the icon is still on the dock.

Nothing, and yet in Recent Items, it says Finder.