[X4U] Next step after safe boot fixes the problem?

[Anne-Marie Concepcion]

Backstory before I get to the question (in case it's helpful):

My 15" Alum Powerbook running 10.4.4 froze up during the log-in 
process this a.m. for the first time.

I had been running it for a half-hour in Target (firewire) mode to 
update my main iMac after a trip out of town... just manually 
dragging and dropping certain folders (nothing 
system/library-related) from my main user folder in the PB to the 
main account in the desktop mac. I've done this before and haven't 
had a problem.

After I unmounted the Powerbook from my iMac and unhooked the 
firewire cable, I restarted the PB and it came up fine, presenting me 
with the login screen. I chose my main user acct. as usual and 
entered the password.

My desktop background came up but *nothing else* other than the 
Spotlight magnifying glass far right. (no other part of the Finder 
menu appeared). No dock, no desktop items, etc. The mouse worked 
though.

It sat there for 15 minutes before I realized it just wasn't coming 
up. I force-restarted and this time at the login screen I chose my 
"test" account. That account loaded fine.... dock, finder, 
third-party doohickeys in the menubar (Stuffit, VersionCue CS2, Now 
Up to Date).

I used fast user switching and chose my daughter's account. That came 
up fine too.

I used fast user switching one more time and chose my main account. 
The same exact symptoms as before happened ... desktop picture 
background and spotlight icon at far right, nothing else, not even a 
Finder menu bar.

So I restarted in Safe Boot mode (Shift Key) and it took about 5 
minutes of me sitting there with my finger on Shift until I got the 
log-in screen that said Safe Boot. I logged into my main account, and 
woo-hoo it loaded fine.

The only non-Apple thing I see in the menu bar is for Now Up to Date.

So ... now what? What should I be removing/uninstalling (or, where 
should I be looking) in order to get my account to boot correctly 
outside of Safe boot?

As I said, WITHOUT Safe Boot, 2 other admin accounts load fine. It's 
only my account with the problem.

So it's got to be something in my User/Library, right? Not in 
/Library or elsewhere? Any likely suspects? Nothing new has been 
installed since it last worked fine, except for the 10.4.4 update 
from 10.4.3 that I did while I was out of town. But after installing 
that update I had to restart, of course, and didn't encounter a 
problem logging in... that was a few days ago.

thanks
AM