Ok, I've got a big problem. I restarted my computer earlier but after the Windows boot-up screen, you know, blue going left to right, instead of getting the usual Welcome blue screen, a prompt asking me to Log On to Windows pops up. Weird thing is, there's only one user so I've never had it put into that mode. I haven't updated any drivers or installed any updates as of late, it just happened out of the blue. So anyway, no password I can think of works so I try by just clicking OK (no password) it logs in but immediately logs back out. I don't know what to do, I've tried holding F8 after restarting, nothing works so I'm pretty much up sh*t creek.

I can't afford to reformat as all my data is in the secondary harddrive: all of my daughters photos and everything.

So can anyone please help me out?

Hi Eirever

Firstly a soon as the biso screen ends try tapping the F8 key instead of holding it to get into safe mode.

Secondly don't worry about your files on the second hard drive. Even if you have to reinstall
they will still be there as long as they are on additional hard-drive and NOT a partition on the same drive.
Did you create an Administrators account as well as your user account?
Because your user account may have problems and windows is trying to
run the Administrators account which would need a password.

Do you have your installation disc?
If you do you could try a repair in stall.
There a good how to on this here: How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

Martman

Well, I found out it's a userinit.exe problem. So I followed instructions on how to fix this:
Insert Windows XP CD, boot CD, press R for Recovery then at the DOS prompt I typed the following:
cd system32
copy d:\i386\userinit.ex_ c:\windows\system32\
It's worked for a lot of people but for me "Access is denied" comes up after typing this.

It would seem that the answer to the problem is to type

EXPAND D:\i386\userinit.ex_ C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32

Not
copy d:\i386\userinit.ex_ c:\windows\system32\

See here post #16

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-2...then-off-again

Hope that helps

Martman

Yeah, well, I've tried that as well but it says that there's no such file or directory. Any other alternatives?

I used BartPE and changed the value for the userinit.exe file to C:\Windows\System32\ but I'm still having the log on/log off loop problem.

Kellys-Korner as a fix called Restore Winlogon\Userinit

Its found here Troubleshooting Windows XP, Tweaks and Fixes for Windows XP

Goto #263 right-hand side

Martman