Restore or not to restore……

we recently aquired a used,(barely),Dell and right from the beginning we had problems.It was using a “Ghost” application for restore, but when we restored to an earlier date it dissapeared. Now of course we created a restore point before we did all this…but it WILL NOT LET US GET BACK TO IT. The “users” menu is empty…we can’t create a user, the control panel has nothing there…. help me…. I am running around in circles and I know the solution is so simple, but it just won’t come to me….. Desparate Debi…