XAMPP Can't access my localhost wordpress login or admin

Hi,
Yesterday I installed XAMPP on my PC (Windows 7)
-I launched XAMPP Control Panel v3.2.1 and changed Apache ports to 8080 and 4433 because Apache would not start with default ports.
-I managed to launch Apache and MySQL and I created a database (named “WP1”) and a user
-I downloaded WP 4.3.1 and unzipped the files in
xampp/htdocs/wp1/wordpress (subfolder was created by mistake, but I don’t think that’s the problem)
-changed wp-config-sample to wp-config and edited DB name and user accordingly
-worked the whole time in localhost/wp1/wordpress and managed to login, dowlnoad themes, plugins, create a few pages for a new website…
-Everything worked perfectly!!!

THEN:

-Laptop battery died w/o warning (old problem I need to fix)
-After connecting computer to charger I restarted the system and accessed XAMPP Control Panel
-I started Apache and MySQL
-Everything Okay (green)

First problem:

When clicking on Mysql “Admin” Chrome (default browser) opens on localhost and it says “page not available”

Same result with http://127.0.0.1 or https://127.0.0.1

I managed to access the admin panel by entering
localhost:8080

-Everything looks okay there

-Then I tried to enter localhost:8080/wp1 and I see a directory tree that shows my wordpress folder

But then:

-If I click on the directory the browser automatically removes “:8080” after localhost
and tries to access localhost/wp1/wordress and I still get the message “page not available ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED”
-If I manually enter localhost/wp1/wordpress/wp-login.php (or wp-admin) in the address bar again I receive the same ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error
-same with https://127.0.0.1/wp1/wordpress/wp-admin

NOW IT GETS EVEN WEIRDER:

-If I manually enter localhost:8080/wp1/wordpress/wp-login.php I get a very basic (only HTML) page with login (name of my site, username and password fields, login old-school HTML button)
-If I enter my data (username and password) using this HTML form I get again the message “This page is not available, ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
-When I enter “localhost:8080/wp1/wordpress/wp-admin “ I see a naked (only old school HTML) version of my wordpress dashboard. If I click on the blue, underlined links (e.g. “all pages” or “themes” or “customize”….) the URL in the address bar changes but nothing appears.

The very last line on this page says “session expired please log in again” and when I click on login the whole thing starts from localhost:8080/wp1/wordpress/wp-loging.php and when I enter my login data I still get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED

SOLUTIONS I’VE TRIED SO FAR (unsuccessfully)

-Changed Proxy Configuration, LAN in chrome (checked or unchecked different checkboxes in many configurations, tried to change port:80 to 8080….): didn’t change the situation

-Edited wp-config by changing DB_HOST to ‘localhost:8080’ instead of ‘localhost’. When I do that and try to access localhost:8080/wp1/wordpress/wp-login.php the page doesn’t load. It simply tries to load for several minutes till I stop it…

-I deactivated firewalls, antivirus programs and so on..still no success

Is there a solution to my problem or should I start everything from scratch???

It took me almost 6 hours to create the first pages and I don’t want to lose all my work 🙁

Thanks in advance for your help