Have already checked the forums for this issue and have found a couple of solutions that fail to work for me. When I boot into windows in either normal or safe mode the login screen appears, when I select any one of the profiles I get a quick glimpse of the desktop wallpaper only and then it saves the settings and returns to the login prompt screen. I have tried the recovery console command of copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe to no avail. I have also placed the drive in another machine and run bot virus and spyware scans to get rid of any malware. I am still facing the same problem. I really do not wish to reformat this disk if it can be avoided. I have a feeling that this might be a problem that is in the registry but I do not know how to access the regisrty of the disk if I am unable to log on to it. Any ideas? All suggestions welcome.

Next step would be a repair install. This is not a reformat! http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/... Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

I agree, that a repair install is called for.