Can't get past Welcome screen normally or in safe mode

My roomate used her computer, then shut it off, came back, turned it back on and it wouldn't load past the welcome screen. we tried getting in on safe mode, that didn't work, she shut it off, waited, turned it back on, and it did the same thing, except finally after 15 minutes logged her into a temporary profile, without any of her files etc. how does she get back to her own profile to where her files are? and what can we do to troubleshoot this?

Any chance you have a restore point or even better an Image from before the problem occured? This could solve the problem quickly.

Uhhhh how do I know if there is a restore point, or a previous image? sorry, i have a pretty basic knowledge of this stuff

When you say Welcome screen, are you talking about the animated Windows Logo screen just before the login? Does it go to a black screen or stay on the logo? And what is on the screen as far as a mouse cursor and/or a blinking cursor?

If so, I would think a driver might be at fault, but you should have been able to get into safe mode anyway. The next thing which might be a problem is the hard drive since I just went through several hours trying to install, only to learn a brand new drive was not reliable.

And, of course I suppose there is always a chance of a virus.

When your roommate shut off the computer, was it put to sleep or completely turned off. Was anything going on when this happened, and any chance some updates were being done?