finder window toolbar icons not displayi

[jagfnz]

something has corrupted the icons on the finder window toolbar - and on the finder window toolbar customize option

basically i had customized the toolbar to include a number if items, but even the view button now is blank (normally it shows several options - now i just seen an outline ) and the path button simply isn't visible

this sounds strange but i think it is associated with having connected an older firewire drive -

i seem to recall changing a system preference file to fix this in the past , but now am not sure which one to actually change ; i have spent an hour on apple's website looking for something relevant....but cannot find the solution (though I know that they did have some information about how to fix this several years ago..)

cheers
john