I've gotten myself into a fix, and wonder if there's some help here. My son's iBook had an extra user on it that I couldn't delete. (I think some fixit folk at his college may have created the user when he had a hard drive problem some time back.) I set System Preferences > Users > Login Options to List of Users. At the first restart, and afterward, the startup is normal up to the point that the desktop shows up. Then All I see is the stripy background, with no icons, no menubar, etc. Disk Utility says everything is OK. Any hints? Stephen Hart http://eugraph.com