Partitioning messed up everything

I have a dual-boot configuration - XP + W8Pro32-bt. I used EaseUS partition manager to take some of the free space from the XP partition and add it to the Windows 8 partition (2 operations). Upon reboot, Windows 8 has no lock screen picture, no user picture and when I log into my user account the screen is just black - nothing at all except the mouse. I can log out by using Ctrl+Alt+Del. When I get back to the lock screen (which has only the time), I try the shutdown button, but it doesn't work.

Here's what I did:
begin:
|-----------XP-----------||----------Windows 8-----------------|
change
|----XP---||-----freespace----||----Windows 8-------------|
merge
|---XP----||-------------------------Windows ------------------|

What a mess!
I tried the repair disk's "auto repair" - it tells me it can't fix anything. I am lost. I don't want to do anything else until someone who knows what they're doing gives me a hand.

I also noticed, if I try to shutdown via the on/off button, it appears to go into sleep mode; it doesn't completely shutdown, so I have not been able to try a hard boot. I hope someone can get me out of this mess I've created!

Thanks!

Win XP & Win 8Pro 32-bit

 

Boot to 8 and try running CHKDSK /R from a command prompt. Probably won't work but definitely worth a shot.

Repartitioning is a notoriously risky business which should not be undertaken without first taking an image of the entire drive.

 

I can not do anything once I am logged into my user account - it's a black screen. Even Task Manager doesn't work. So how would I do this? Booting with the repair disk or the OS disk, shows the drive as "X".

 

I guess you are seeing X:> when at the command prompt when booted to the system repair disk? If so that's not your Win 8 partition, it's more likely the letter assigned to the ramdrive that is created when you go into Command Prompt from Repair. Try typing C: <Rtn> at the prompt and if the prompt changes to C:> then type dir /p and have a look to see if it looks like the root of your Win 8 drive. If it does then type chkdsk /r