Lsass.exe Missing

Hi All

I've got Vista 32 bit Home premium edition installed on my laptop and
things were ok until now. Now all of a sudden, it shows that the
lsass.exe file is missing and the desktop is not appearing upon
restart. The user login is successful, but the error shows up and the
desktop is not showing up. I've tried searching around the Vista CD to
no avail. Kindly let me know of any solutions that can be done without
reinstalling the OS. I am able to use the command prompt BUT NOT IN THE SAFE MODE

Thanks a ton for your quick response.

Cheers

Sam

you should be able to do a system restore in safemode. log in as administrator.
data will be safe.
sounds like a virus to me.
i just got sevice pack 1 on my vista enterprise last nite, bingo, i got a hijack.
a restore rebuilt the system, and all was okay.