I Have a Dell Latitude D620 with Windows XP Professional installed for College. However, when I started up my laptop today, I logged in and all that was visible was my wallpaper and Nothing else, not even the toolbar with the start menu. I logged into Safe mode with the help of a Dell technician and tried to restore my laptop to an earlier date numerous times but nothing worked. However, although nothing works in the regular mode, everything loads in Safe Mode, and it is through Safe Mode I can access the internet, Microsoft Word, My Documents. Itunes will not work because I can't seem to get audio. I have no idea what to do to fix my laptop so that I can log on normally outside of Safe Mode. Can anyone help me, please? I'd really appreciate it.

Since no hardware drivers are installed in SAFE mode there is no audio or quality video available. If restore did not bring the system back online that indicates either a major Windows error of hardware failure. Sometimes getting the boot menu and selecting VGA mode can get to the desktop if the problem is the video driver. In the event all methods fail to work the next step is to try a repair install since Dell usually provides an OEM XP disk. This would let you correct the problems and still have documents and programs still installed. If that fails the next step would be to reinstall Windows. Richard

When the normal startip process has finished and you can see the wallpaper, press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Now the Taskmanager should start. In the Taskmanager click on FILE / START A NEW TASK. In a english version Fill in EXPLORE.exe In a german version Fill in EXPLORER.exe Now your Desktop should start and you can try to figure out, why the startup process did not finish correctly. Paul

...everything loads in Safe Mode, and it is through Safe Mode I can access the internet, Microsoft Word MS word will load in safe mode but not IE6/IE7. In safe mode you will get the notorious "Internet explorer cannot display the webpage" message with its useless suggestion that you diagnose connection problem. If you were running AOL, you will be told "AOL connection failed - unable to establish TCP/IP connection." The option Safe Mode with Networking only uses a minimal set of device drivers and services to start Windows together with the drivers that you must have to load networking. It does not mean that you have instant Internet access. Now could you please enlight us as to how you got yours working in safe mode? i_Xp/VistaUser

Sounds to me like an active program got corrupted and it is preventing your computer from going into normal mode. In safe mode go to start/run type msconfig and go to the startup tab. In there you will find a series of programs that startup automaticly when windows starts up. Uncheck one and restart your pc back to normal mode. If you still can't get back to normal mode, go to safe mode and back to the start/run type msconfig and startup tab and uncheck another and restart your pc back into normal mode. Do those methods each time until you can get back to normal mode. If it was a startup item that was causing it, write it down and tell us or google it and you will find what program that belongs to and how to get rid of it.