all pictures and word docs suddenly disappear?

I left mozzila firefox open because my bf wanted something. I came back a half hour later and for some reason the start bar at the bottom of the screen had grown larger and some of my folders from my desktop were i it. I thought the computer had randomly created shortcuts and I started deleting them hoping to make it go back to normal. Now the files are missing. I had a folder with several folders containing all my pictures and word docs and they are no where to be found. I system restored twice from different points and the files are still missing. Where did they go??????????????