Ok I fixed my problem, I didn't find a similar solution online, but I did find many similar problems, so I hope this may be benificial to someone.

My problems:
1. Data files option in Skyrim launcher greyed out
2.Options in launcher won't save prefferences (prefs.ini issues)
3. upon (re)installation of steam drive letter * (in my case F) not found.
steam will not install without that drive letter. Someone on the nexus forum suggested using a thumb drive and setting that to the drive letter & it works (just to get steam istalled), but it [censored]s up your .ini when you go to play a game and you have removed the thumb drive.

My fix:
exit steam completely
Insert thumbrive used to fix drive letter problem (if necessary)
Change thumbdrive to different letter
shrink your hdd by a few gig (I entered 10,000 mb) (win key + R, type in compmgmt.msc, click drive management, right click on drive)
create a new partition in the new unallocated space
assign that new partition the drive letter in the previous eror (in my case F)
transfer My games folder from thumbdrive to new partition on hdd.
Start steam
(hopefully) enjoy Skyrim


Also I ended up uninstalling steam and reinstalling:
Proper steps?
1. exit steam
2. move steamapps to desktop or backup location
3. uninstall steam from programs and features
4. run the steam re-installer (the .msi not the .exe)
5. put steamapps in the steam directory BEFORE signing in
6. sign into steam
7. verify integrity of game cache
8. start game (hope and pray...Beth and Steam is one heck of a combo...)