need help with a small 3ds max problem

[the1greg]

I was in the middle of modelling a goblin head when my hand slipped and hit my keyboard (i think) or i must of pressed a button in the ui so my x y z handle bar mover thingy has disappeared. it makes it extremly hard to move and rotate objects, edges, polygons ect with precision therefore meaning my working speed has slowed down by about 8000% but im sure there is a quick resolution to this problem and im just having a 'noob' moment.
i have looked on the hotkey map, the hotkey assign list thing, i have reset the layout and stuff to when you first installed 3ds max but nothing seemed to work. its very annoying so please help

[atk501]

hit x on the keyboard (this is the default setting for hide unhide the gizmo) then hit w to select the move gizmo, or you may have made the gizmo too small. If so then just press the plus sign on the keyboard to make it bigger.