All I see is my desktop picture after start up?

Question

I can't see my desktop icons or the start menu. All I see is the desktop picture and the pointer. What should I do? I alread reinstalled my XP pro, and the problem is still there. I can press (CTRL ALT DEL) to get somethings going. I have a Toshiba P100 / 1 gig / xp pro / 512 video card. Help.

Answer 1

Since I am not able to watch your boot process this is just a stab in the dark. Does it seen to finish the boot and boot properly? does it apeatr to log you in? If so then, if you right click oon the desktop when it has finished loading do you get the menu options without a problem? If you see graphic options and properties in the menu try starting there. make sure the graphics option is set to the notebook. Also click and check the "arange icons" and make sure that show desktop icons is checked. Go to properties and then select the settings tab and try playing with the resolution. My laptop works best at 1280 x 768. Also, mouse down to the bottom of your screen and see if you can get a respose to drag the task bar upward. Just some things to try assuming you got no errors on you reinstall.

Another train of thought - if you have bad memory these types of things can happen. If you performed a memory upgrade recently try removing the additional memory chip then reinstalling the OS software again.

Last, there should be a complete restore disk(s) option available to you that should have shipped with the Toshiba system (but this would wipe out everything) as a last resort. You should be able to remove the hard drive and set it up as a slave drive to another system and remove any data you might need before you totally rebuild the drive to the Toshiba config.

Answer 2

Press CTRL ALT DEL to bring up task manager. Select file at the top, then select new. Type in explorer. Hit enter, it will bring back your desktop icons. Now try going to the start button>select run. Type in msconfig. Hit enter. Select the startup tab, and select the button disable all. Hit apply. The select the services tab, and check off HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES (make sure you do this or you can really mess up your system). Uncheck any services that are running. Hit apply, then close/ok. It will ask you to restart, so restart your laptop. Hopefully this helps.