Error 404 when accessing admin backend

[edmarch]

Hi,

I've been searching for hours now without luck and I think I'm finally ready to ask for help.

The problem: when I go to /administrator of my website I get a 404 component not found error message.

The cause (I think): About 6 months ago I had problems with various modules not working on my site (article manager etc) and in the end it was solved by deleting some cache files. Now today I had to do a bit of admin so I logged in and tried to access the plugins section....which wouldn't work. suspecting a similar thing as before, I found some info on the web that said to delete the folder "models" from administrator/components/com_plugins. my folder was actually /cache/administrator/components/com_plugins but I deleted the folder "models" as he said.

That solved the plugins manager problem and I was able to get in.

THEN......I tried to get into the global configuration manager and got a 'fatal error....line 134" or something, I've forgotten now. And while browsing for a solution, I tried again randomly and now only get a 404 error for the whole admin backend.

The front end of the site is still up and running.

Oh and I've reuploaded the "models" folder.....but it's still giving the same error.

Please help,

Any help is greatly appreciated

Ed

***update*** If I use this /administratorindex.php?option=com_user&view=login&Itemid=24 instead of just administrator, I get to log in, but still not access to the actual panel. Not sure if this helps but thought I'd say it.

***2nd update****I've enabled error reporting and I now get:

Component not found

Call stack
# Function Location
1 JSite->dispatch() /home/content/76/11775676/html/index.php:69
2 JComponentHelper->renderComponent() /home/content/76/11775676/html/includes/application.php:124
3 JError->raiseError() /home/content/76/11775676/html/libraries/joomla/application/component/helper.php:95
4 JError->raise() /home/content/76/11775676/html/libraries/joomla/error/error.php:171
5 JException->__construct() /home/content/76/11775676/html/libraries/joomla/error/error.php:136