Need help. installing Ubuntu 10.04

I installed 10.04 last night, but I guess something happened during installation, and now I have no idea how to fix it.

The computer starts up as it normally would, and gets to the splash screen (black screen with Ubuntu logo in the middle), before it goes to a black screen with a command prompt to enter my username and password.

Once I do that, it says "Welcome to Ubuntu" and lets me type in commands and stuff.
While researching online, I found this thread:
http://forums.techarena.in/operating...ms/1241547.htm

I tried the first thing,

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

and that brings me to the GUI login prompt (what I want), but then my mouse doesn't work. I even tried plugging in a normal USB optical mouse and that doesn't work either (though it's definitely connected because the red light beneath the mouse turns on, it just doesn't do anything.

Anybody have any idea what I did, and how I can fix it? Thanks!