Internet Security 2010 and stuck on Welcome screen

Got infected by IS 2010 today. Thought i caught it early; SuperAntiVirus had detected and asked to re-boot. However, after the computer restarted, it will not go boot past the Windows XP welcome/log-in screen. Prior to this, it never asked for log-in. It just keeps looping without getting anything further, even in Safe Mode. I tried Ctrl/Alt/Del and it didn't do any good. I can see the desktop picture briefly before the welcome screen comes up.

Since I can't even get to the command prompt, what else can I try at least get to command prompt?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated...

Please download the current version of HijackThis from HERE

• Double click and run the installer.
  
• It will install to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\hijackthis.exe
  
• After installing, you should get the user agreement, press accept and Hijack This will run.
  
• Select Do a system scan and save a log file. This will open a notepad file of everything Hijack This found, copy and paste it back here.
  

Thank you for your reply.
I will try the Avira CD method first before trying this. Since I can't get further than the welcome screen, I don't know how to run Hijack This for now?! Will Hijack This automatically run from a flash disk or CD if I change the load sequence in BIOS?

HijackThis is not recommended to be run from a flash drive since it won't find everything. Please do the Avira Cd and see if that helps.

Thanks Origin for your feedback.
I'm running the Avira now and I'll post the result after it's done scanning.

Do you know anything about those two penguins? since they appeared before the Avira loaded, not sure if it's part of other virus?!

Which penguins? Actual penguins? I'll have to look into that once the scan is finished.

There were two suspicious black penguin-looking creatures on the upper left hand corner after the computer asked me to confirm booting from Avira disk (before the Avira AntiVir Rescue Screen showed up)

Hehe, that would be a first, a penguin has taken over your computer.

Okay, let it boot to the Avira system.

Well, two penguins teamed up and took over my computer to be exact.

The scan finished but it didn't find anything, but I realized that I didn't change the directory path (it was set to be "/media" i think) under configuration so I'm not sure if that had affected the result. I'm re-scanning it now to be sure.

Okay, standing by.

No luck, Avira didn't find anything, just a lot of warnings. Try re-booting, still the same problem, logging in and out in the loop. Any other suggestions?
Also, here's a picture of the mysterious penguins:


Thanks!

Still haven't solved the problem.
After I found my XP disc, I thought I could go into the recovery console finally. BUT.... the keyboard stops responding when it gets to the selection screen (where it gives the choices of ENTER, R, or F3)
The keyboard would work until this point (I could see the lights blinking)

Any suggestion is appreciated!

bump

Hello.
Sorry, missed this post.

Do you have your original XP or Vista disc?

I have the original XP disk. Don't know it makes a difference or not, but I honestly don't remember whether it's for this particular Dell computer or not?! The disk cover says SP1; but I think the computer's running on SP3.

I also have Dell's original disks; I'm actually running Dell's diagnostic from their recovery disk now, it's taking forever, so far the problem I've found is that the mouse doesn't work normally (whereas when I booted with XP disk, neither the keyboard nor the mouse would work after a certain point).

I'd tried to boot the computer using a BART PE recovery disk but that didn't work at all.

Dell's diagnostic tool didn't find anything, thought I could try to change the userini.exe that I'd read in the tutorial section when I saw the A:\> prompt... but it would not let me change to c: at all... what else can I try to get around this logon loop?