Can this installation be saved?

This is a laptop with XP pro installed. I ran Adaware and A-Squared simultaneously, while doing something else on another computer. The laptop went into standby. When I brought it back, I had a dialog box stating that some of the system files had been changed, and I should insert the XP pro disk to bring back the original files. Unfortunately, I had a second battery sitting in the CD drive bay, and not being sure that it was safe to pull it and insert the CD player, I exited, and shut down. I then inserted the drive, and attempted to fix the installation via setup. The process asked me for the administrator password. I don't recall using a password when I did a clean install way back when. I'm pretty sure I didn't. Anyway, I typed in several that I have used on numerous other occasions, getting a not correct password statement each time. One of the passwords resulted in C:>Windows. I typed HELP and got a list of acceptable commands. I tried BOOTFIX and it ran and stated that the boot sector was fixed. Booting the laptop gets me to the desktop, but only the background shows. No icons, no taskbar. The cursor is visible, it moves, but mouseclicks have no result or effect. This is the same result that I got before I tried the recovery via the setup from the CD. So, I don't know what, if anything the bootfix accomplished. Am I condemned to reinstalling and finding all of the drivers again, or is this salvageable?
Thanks,

 

Try booting to safemode. If it works there, you can try using system restore. To boot to safemode, you need to press F8 just before you see the Windows XP screen. If you can't get it just tap the F8 key continuously while the computer is booting. It'll stop at menu where you can select safemode. Also, in the same menu you'll see a line that says "last known good configuration ". You can try selecting that and see if it'll get you in.

 

Thanks for your reply, Zander. I tried both safe mode and last known good installation. Unfortunately, my installation was too far gone, so I resigned myself to a new install, but, in the setup process, I saw the option to repair the current installation, and it worked!
Thanks again for your kind help.

 

Well, it wasn't much help but you're welcome anyway. Thanks for posting back and letting us know.

 

I'm wondering if you would have went into the Task manager, processes tab, and launched the explorer.exe process, if that would of fixed your problem.