Series of Unfortunate events ... installing restricted extras

First, it took me WEEKS to install Ubuntu 11.10 Oneric .. I was running Windows XP and burned a live CD installation iso. No problems so far. I cleaned up a bunch of junk in XP, defragged, partitioned my hard drive, and ran both system and file backups to a NEW USB hard drive... The unfortuanate events started here. I had partitioned the USB hard drive so I could keep my WinXP and Linux backups separate. One partition for xp "backup image" files, one for Ubuntu backups, one for uncompressed data files, and one for future use. There were no problems with the backup image files so I went ahead with the Ubuntu installation...

I booted from the live-CD and started the installation, and the process would repeatedly hang not too far from the end. There were problems reading the CD. I tried the text based installer. It would boot and get through several preliminary screens. When it was ready to "install base system" that one would hang too. I downloaded and ran the md5 slash count (or something like that) to verify my iso files were correct. I purchased a used CD/DVD drive and tried again. I booted the live cd, ran the installation, and was actually IN Ubuntu. (needs to reboot to finish installation process) click OK. Booted back into WinXP! It was installed, but not recorded in the MBR! When checking the contents of the hard drive, I realized that Ubuntu was not in the "primary partition" I had created for it, but in the very small "unallocated space" I left at the end of the drive. Command prompt>Format c: Windows system restore. Delete unwanted programs, defrag, partition (leaving unallocated space for Ubuntu), system and file backups, copy data files onto USB !!Cyclic Redundancy Error!! Command prompt>chkdsk C: , check RAM, Check Usb drive. BAD DRIVE! Exchange drive, backup system, files, install Ubuntu! SUCCESS!!,

Played around with Ubuntu for a couple of hours, got Banshee to read the MP3 files somewhat successfully from music that was stored in the windows partition of the hard drive. Started having problems reading the screen. The background image was pixillated and the text was impossible to read. (the first evidence of this was in the lables when I did mouse-over from the launcher) ... did some reading, changed display settings several times and the background image would temporarily be fixed, but as I became active in exploring folders, apps, web browsers, the image and system text would again degenerate. Text, images, and video from the internet would display fine in both firefox and chromium, but as I minimized web browsers and opened local folders, the locally generated text would be illegible. I found the restricted extras download and clicked install after reading all the rave recommendations. It warned me that two files (packages? directories? ...) would be have to be removed to install the restricted extras. "Yeah, whatever, go ahead." OOPS!

Now my (Menu?) bar at the top of the screen shows the drop down menus from" file" through" help" but I've lost everything at the right side! Logout, calendar, banshee volume controller, time, shutdown, and settings? I've also lost my Ubuntu Launcher and Dash... I had just spent several hours familiarizing myself with what they do and where they direct me! Windows Explorer had me spoiled! I could always find anything, but here I am in a new OS and nothing to navigate by and an unfamiliar filsesystem!

I found the desktop configuration files for many applications, copied them to the desktop, and now have greatly restored the functionality, but I still don't have anything back on the right end of my main menu bar. Minimizing Chromium, I have no idea what happens to the current session. When I click that desktop item, it opens as a new window back to my start page. Minimizing the Ubuntu Software Center and restoring by double-clicking the icon takes me back to the page I had previously minimized. The Shut Down desktop config icon brings me to the interactive window asking me if I want to shut-down or restart, and when I tell it to shut down, takes me to the sign-in screen rather than shutting down. I click Shut down from that screen (I do have the shutdown button at the right end of that menu/system bar) and it again asks me if I'm sure and I tell it yes, but nothing happens... I can either sign back in to Ubuntu, or do a hard reboot to get back to windows.

I can no longer access data files stored in my XP partition, They have been removed from the tree-view when browsing the file system folder, and trying to import the music files back into Banshee Library, I get a message telling me that I cannot mount that drive, access denied.

I'm not totally uncomfortable using a command prompt/terminal, but It's been many years. I could do basic stuff in TI basic, turbo pascal, and Windows DOS up through Windows version 3.1. In preparation for installing Linux, I read "UNIX Primer Plus" last week (It was published in 1983 and given to me by a neighbor who thought it might help) But this is my fist Linux installation and I'm sure there are a lot of commands that have been generated since 1983.

Questions:
What files/directories were uninstalled in order to install the restricted extras package? I didn't write them down.
Now that the 'extras' has installed, can I recover them?

I don't necessarily need the whole launcher on the left of the screen, but I liked the "dash" button and the "change workspace" feature. How can I recover that functionality?

How can I restore access to/mount my XP partition so that it shows up in the tree directory and I can play media files through banshee, and access documents through LibreOffice? (It also didn't recognize a USB storage device (DCIM camera/scanner which it recognized fine before the 'extras' install) in the directory tree when I plugged that in to email my time-sheets to my boss... had to go back to XP to do that, and I'm really getting tired of XP!)

Where did all my active/minimized chromium browser windows go?

How do I get back the clock/calendar/shut-down/banshee functionality of my main menu bar, or at least convince the system that I really want to shut down instead of merely logging out?

On the bright side, most of my pixilation problem has cleared up... sometimes the background image and text will still pixilate, but at least when I mouse-over the text it becomes readable again.