Hi all, FIRST time post. Looking for some advice, when i start up my laptop (HP pav ze5300) it seems to be working properly until it comes to the username/icon screen, there it says the normal click on your user name to start but on the RIGHT hand side there are no icons or names to click on (just blue!). In that screen i can only click on the shut down option, ive PRESSED ctrlaltdel but since ive never had a password i cant logon through that either. Ive also tried using safemode and my last good setting to enter but it always stops at the username/icon screen. Im pretty sure this is a fairly serious problem which will probably endup with me having to reinstall windows xp but any help would be really really really appreciated as i dont want to lose all my documents.

Cheers
TomDo you have the XP disk? If so you can try running the recovery from the disk. First, can you boot to safe mode? Try while loading hit F12 or F8 and choose safe mode. While in safe mode run your system restore and set it to a date you know was good.
If that doesnt work put in your Windows XP disk and resart the computer and restart booting through CD rom.
The windows set up will start. You can now use the recovery console, but I wouldnt bother, instead go ahead and on the first screen say you are installing xp (dont worry you wont erase anything yet) when you do this it searches you hard drive for previous windows versions, it will tell you it found it.  Here is where you are giving the option to repair it or replace it. Repair it.  That should help.  But first try the safe mode and Recovery.
Make sure you have your reg key before you try the re-lay.

let me know  
Cheers mate, the safe mode does load up but freezes at the same screen so i dont think i can get system restore to run at all, ive tried ctrlaltdel in safe mode as well thinking it might open task manager but no joy. Im getting my windows disc this wekend so ill let you know how i get on. Im gonna try and repair it, fingers crossed.
If all else fails and i have to relay is thre any chance my old files will be stored (i thought maybe in a "files from old computer" FOLDER somewhere in windows folder), ive heard that it will keep some but will erase "my documents". Where do i find the reg key by the way? Will it be on my windows cd package or in my hp handbook or SOMETHING? Ill have a look for that too, pretty sure ive seen it somewhere.

Thanks for the adviceThis may be of some help to you, good luck with it.
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpcdrepair/part1.htmThanks, ill have a look for sure. Anything even vaguely resembling a life line is pounced on immediately!Sorry for being thick, i dont know what a KNOPPIX CD is. Should i have one? Ah ok, ive just had a look at the knoppix site, ill try and dl that next week too. Sounds pretty complicated though.Once you burn the ISO file to a CD it is as complicated as loading the CD and restarting the computer. You can do that, can't you?  If that doesnt work put in your Windows XP disk and resart the computer and restart booting through CD rom.
The windows set up will start. You can now use the recovery console, but I wouldnt bother, instead go ahead and on the first screen say you are installing xp (dont worry you wont erase anything yet) when you do this it searches you hard drive for previous windows versions, it will tell you it found it.  Here is where you are giving the option to repair it or replace it. Repair it.  That should help.  


Ive just done this and it works perfectly and seems to reload everything as you would expect. Then it restarts windows xp and sticks at exactly the same screen. Not very funny.

Im thinking now of doing the knoppix,