I have been using the KDE desktop with Fedora 1 for about a year now and all was well until two days ago when I powered up the system. My started menu ( the red hat on the bottom left of the screen) just magically disappeared. For a brief moment there was something installing ,but before I could do anything the pop menu associated with that install disappeared. When all the services were installed I notice that there was no red hat Menu.
What I am certain about is, that problem is only associated with the user account.When I logged on as root, all is well.

I need help.

try deleting .kde directory in the users home directory, it will be recreated with the default menus (i think).

you may also try coping it from another account (e.x. root account). If you do that don't forget to change recursively the owner. see chown