Everytime I start my computer, the desktop comes up for a few seconds, then everything disappear (desktop & taskbar) leaving me only with the background pic. If I ctrl-alt-del, I can type in explorer.exe and everything comes back - but only for a few senconds then it's all gone and I can only see my background picture again. I tried booting to safe mode, but after I click 'YES' in the window telling you you are in safe mode, the screen goes blank with 'safe mode' in each corner, and after a few seconds, I get the same screen telling me I'm in safe mode, click 'YES' to continue...and it does this over and over...I never can actually get into safe mode. I booting to recovery console and running chkdsk / r....but that didn't help. Any help here would be great! Thanks alot!

Create another user account. Logon under that account. Does the problem go away? We are testing for a corrupt user profile. Spyware and virus free? Imagine the power of knowing how to internet search http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

If he can't get to a stable desktop etc. (be it safe or "normal/standard" mode) can he actually create a new account; as in Control-panel\user-accounts etc.? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279783 It does sound as though there is something amiss with the core-files overall. Possibly a full scan for virus etc. would resolve it. Ubuntu or Knoppix (linux variants on a CD) would allow this scan option? Failing which a repair installation? If going the latter then it would be wise to use Ubuntu/Knoppix to copy data off the system entirely to optical media (and verify those copies are OK elsewhere on another working system), before proceeding with the repair routine(s)?

Hi I can't make a new account because everything disappears before I can do anything. I do have 2 user accounts on the machine though, and it does it for both of them. I try to keep my antivirus\spyware programs up to date, but I guess that always a possiblity right? I was going to take the hard drive out and slave it in another machine to check for viruses, but this hard drive is SATA and my other machines are all ide. Thanks for your help!

There are (external) adapters around now that allow one to hook up a drive (without installing in any enclosure or inside another PC) as an external drive to a working system. The adapters work via a usb (2.0) connection to the "host" PC. I bought one recently and tested it out; works perfectly. One version is EIDE only; other is both SATA and EIDE. Logically get the dual/multi-format version - it's worth the few extra pennies... Both acccommodate both laptop and desktop drives. The kit includes appropriate cables/adapters/psu etc. If the system come up clean of virii/malware etc... Then at that time copy off data etc. - as suggested in earlier post; then restore drive to its home system and try a repair routine?