i would think that it's a result of the archiCAD 9 work environment being able to store exact positions of your preferred palette positions . . . when i worked with two monitors, i set up two profiles, one that maximised the screen-estate and the other set to the confines of my laptop resolution.
whenever i switched monitor environments i also switched archiCAD profiles. to get your palettes back temporarily, you just need to apply one of the standards profiles that comes with 9 - unless your laptop resolution is way too small!
a quick scan of the manual on the 'work environment' section should provide all of your answers. and, most likely, win you over to a better solution for handling your own particular archiCAD set-up . . .
HTH
~/archiben
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