My Folders Will Not Open? Help?, Im new to all this, and bad with computers in general.... Options

[Queesting]

I recently was given a Acer Aspire 1 laptop that used to run windows but was changed to linux (Ubuntu) Everything was running smoothly, but I was trying to edit a picture in Inkscape and it saved weird or something and for a while it froze up my desktop whenever I tried to click on it or anything else on my desktop. I could still use my browser and do other things but I couldnt touch anything on my desktop. Today, all the files that were on my desktop are gone and I cant open any of my folders. I can use a less direct route to look at the pictures that saved oddly, and they say erro not a jpeg or something and I can still upload pictures to the web, but none of my files will open. Help?