Screen turns black after login

[thinkpink1000]

So today I was having trouble connecting to a wireless internet network and decided to restart my computer. In the process, it was taking a long time so I turned it off using the power button. When I turned it back on, everything went on as usual (except for the screen at the start telling me the computer had not been shut off properly; I chose to start windows as normal). After I came to the log in screen and entered my password to login, the screen turned black but I could still move around the mouse. I left it alone for a while but nothing had happened. How can I fix this?

I'm on Windows Vista Home Premium.

Thank you!

[Allan]

Let's get the obvious out of the way first - I assume you've tried rebooting again, yes? If so, boot to the Vists disk and try the repair options. In the future, you might consider using a disk imaging utility on a regular basis. Makes it a lot easier to recover from major problems.

[thinkpink1000]

Sorry I'm kinda lacking in the technology department. If by rebooting you mean turning the computer back off and on again then yeah I've tried that. What do you mean by booting to the Vists disk though?

[Allan]

Make sure the cd drive is at the top of the boot order in bios, insert the Vista cd, and reboot.

[thinkpink1000]

Would restoring the system work instead?

[patio]

You can try it...but you need to be in Windows 1st.
If you mean restoring Windows from the CD ALL your data and apps will be gone and the machine will be back to Day 1 status...