Can't get past unexpected Welcome screen

[jk2230]

Have been running Windows XP for several years on my desktop. Never used a Password to get into Windows - computer simply booted up to Desktop with all my icons. Until today.

I had to reboot. When I did I got to the screen with "Welcome" on the left and "Owner"(with chess piece icon) on the right.

If I click Owner icon, I get the following messages:

Loading your personal settings, then
Logging off

Then right back to Welcome/Owner screen.

One time I somehow (not sure what I clicked to get here) got a screen that allowed me to enter a Password but as I've never setup a Password whatever I entered did not get me to the Desktop.

Can't seem to duplicate that screen. At present am stuck at Welcome screen.

HELP!

Signed,

Dead in the Water

[opaper]

Do a "repair" installation on Windows. When you are done, immediately download HijackThis (freeware) and install it.

[ThoMas321]

just push enter, dont enter a password, its a glich in xp.

[jk2230]

Thank you guys (gals?) for responding so quickly. Unfortunately pushing Enter didn't do the trick (always try the easy fix first, I always say).

I have the disk to do a repair install, however........

....a short while back (well before the Welcome screen problem arose), Windows stopped recognizing my CD drive. Looked at a variety of potential fixes (some suggestions involved editing registry, etc.) and got a bit scared off due to fears of losing the hard drive in the process.

So at the moment I have a good Windows XP disk with which to do a repair install but no CD drive available to run it off of. So my question is: if I got an external CD drive do you think that would work? Remember I can't get into Windows at the moment to add any new hardware etc., so am not sure if the computer will check an external CD drive on reboot.

Any thought?

Thanks

[Zachary]

try to manually switching the cd rom & then doing a repair. Note that select the first boot device to cd rom in bios first.