Desktop Background is narrow and on left side.

On my laptop with XP, my desktop background picture shows only about a two inch strip on the left side. All icons are within this strip and cannot be dragged out of it. No change if I change background scene or no background at all (only a color). Otherwise it works normal, this only happens on Desktop background. (If I have a scene as a background picture, it shows only a strip of it not the whole thing scrunched into the two inches.) Very annoying and I have tried everything I can think of.