Power Surge possible damages?

[Markoman01027]

I was in the middle of talking on AIM..
All of a sudden my house gets a power surge. So my computer shuts down automaticly and I regain power to everything except the PC. So I turn on the PC, and nothing is turned on. So I check all of the plugs outside, nothing still. So I open up the case, reseat the video card, check the RAM, CPU, all of the connections including the LED cables, etc. I replug the power supply cable & then also replug the outside power cable from the surge protector to the power supply. Try to turn on PC, and the PC boots.
I boot into WIN2K just fine, but I am unable to click on any desktop icons. So I reboot a few times, no help. I try to boot into safe mode, but it just freezes at the welcome screen. So I reboot and try last known working configuration, no fix, default configuration, no fix.
So I boot into 2K setup & run repair. Repair did not solve the problem either. Checked for viruses, trojans, and spyware, found none.
So I end task some programs, and what am I able to do? Click on desktop icons! YAY! and my system tray icons pop up! So I reboot the PC and I am able to boot up just fine and click on everything fine.

Thank you in advance!

I'm wondering what could of caused this? What damage did the power surge do? Any other basic diagnostic techniques I could of used to diagnose this problem?

[pam123]

I would have done a repair reinstall but your solution is brilliant!
Windows can put itself "back together again" if it can do it a bit at a time.
The only thing you really have to do is replace the surge protector. Once it's taken a good hit it's done it's job.
If you'd fried any hardware the smell of charred silicon would have given the damage away. You could have more subtle damage that will shorten the lifespan of some of your parts .
You should run scan disk, set it to repair any errors, download the diagnostics from your hdd manufacturers web site, and generally watch for things like your cd-rom not working etc.
Power supply problems could also happen.
You might have corrupted files that will need repairing.
Still, it sounds like you're going to walk away free.

[Markoman01027]

People at work told me that when the surge happened, it turned off the power supply and you need to reset it.