What do you mean your settings have disappeared? Do you mean that your config files are gone? Or that they've changed? Or reverted?
Why did you install kdeutils? And why do you think it may have caused the problem?
What other actions did you take?
I installed kdeutils because I remembered that kdiskfree was in it. However, that was a mistake (the installation) because my lovely, clean (non-kde4) lxde was "contaminated"

with kde4 elements, which I couldn't remove (despite uninstalling kdeutils). I didn't have time to do any extensive searching, so decided to reinstall the entire lxde and now am back to square one. Simple and entirely effective.

Thanks.
