lost all my tables -- HELP

[tcloud]

Running XAMPP 1.8.3 on Windows 7 64 bit Pro, all working okay until I added a database and a new user this morning.

Set up new database with one table in it and then tried to set up a new user. mySQL crashed and would not restart. Error log had something about tables it couldn't access:
innodb_index_stats
innodb_table_stats
slave_master_info
slave_relay_log_info
slave_worker_info

I searched on-line for help and found that I could delete mysql\data\ibdata1 and could then restart mySQL, but I still couldn't create a new user.

I copied up all the mysql\data tables to another drive and tried some more recommendations, which included deleting some of the tables, but none worked, so I restored the table files.

I followed these instructions to mysql.ini:
Restoring MySQL InnoDB Files on Windows
http://www.nerdydork.com/restoring-mysql-innodb-files-on-windows.html

I don't know when the tables were lost, but phpMyAdmin now reports that the tables do not exist -- but the table files are still in the mysql\data\ folder and they are unchanged from when they were working.

** I have a backup of the entire XAMPP install before all of this began, when things were working well. I compared the backup to what is currently in the data directory and the files are identical.

I ran
mysql > show databases

... the only databases that showed were information_schema and test.

Help. How do I get mySQL to recognize the tables? ... I can live without creating new users, but it would be nice if I could do that as well (this is a local test install and users aren't important to me).

thanks,
Tom

below my reference so I can remember what I looked at:
http://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?p=218295&sid=aa76af1f088639c3661985b7b1d6d274
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=68584
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=67179
http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/48166/cannot-open-table-mysql-innodb-index-stats
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2366018/how-to-re-sync-the-mysql-db-if-master-and-slave-have-different-database-incase-o
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/rebuilding-tables.html

[Altrea]

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=54162&p=206816#p206816

[tcloud]

That article is about not being able to create users ?

My install worked fine until this morning. I created a test database last month and have been using it with no problems. All of the table files are identical to the way the were when I last backed them up (a couple of weeks ago).

phpMyAdmin shows a message "Table .... doesn't exist"

Please tell me how to get mySQL to see the tables again.

I tried the
SELECT CURRENT_USER();
SHOW GRANTS;
... and nothing happens, no result.

I went to http://localhost/security/index.php and set a root password and then I ran the resetroot.bat (no logic to this, it's just what I did), but everything is the same -- still can't access tables that I know existed.

Is it because I've been deleting the ibdata1 and ibdata_log files?

Is there any way to have mySQL re-initialize its indexes to my tables?