Greetings, up till now Skyrim would start fine. I looked in different places for answers but I could not apply them to my situation. I have win xp, I can not find the local files of game cache to restore the game as I have read in different places. I am fairly frustrated. Any help would be greatly apprecated !

Do you have a hard copy of Skyrim or was it downloaded via Steam?

I have the hard copy

Try going under Users/[user name]/Program Files/Bethesda Softworks/Skyrim...or something like that. I don't know the exact path because I'm on my Mac right now.

Start->my documents

Within that there should be a folder called my games

Within that there should be a folder called Skyrim (I think! - might be Bethesda and then Skyrim)

You verify the local cache via Steam...

Go to the Library section, right-click on the game and select Properties from the menu.
Select the Local files tab and click the Verify integrity of game cache.

Yes, you have to verify your local cache. Also, make sure Steam is updated, because I remember seeing something in the change log where Steam would inadvertently delete certain game files.