Windows Update Issue

[Caal]

I've been having problems with my laptop since the most recent Windows update. When playing Din's Curse, the system froze. After rebooting the laptop, the character I was playing had been set to level zero and couldn't be loaded. The character was fairly new so I don't really care, but there seem to now be two weird issues: 1) I cannot now create a hardcore character (which is all I play now) - the default is reset - I can't access hardcore without getting a softcore character to level 25 (which I really don't want to do) and 2) as I loaded another (higher level) character, a bunch of achievements unlocked.

So it seems like some part of the game's information was wiped out. Is there any way to restore the ability to make hardcore characters? I have a fairly recent system backup if needed.

Thanks.