Recovery Console problem

Have XP home, service pack 2. Have 2 user accounts on system. Use Spybot, Norton, Adaware, MS Antivirus. Check once a week with an online virus check as well. Machine is clean. (I hope!) We had a problem with email that ISP straightened out. (had 2 dsl accounts, cancelled one, and they cancelled the wrong one so that the email assigned was incorrect). After they fixed it, I could access Outlook Express and email, but on my wife's account, Outlook Express would not open at all. Thought there might be a conflict now with something, so went to msconfig, clicked on Safeboot, restart and now my machine won't start. Get black screen with "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this." Blah blah blah. It then lists options of starting in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command prompt, Last Known good configuration and Start Windows Normally. No matter which one I select, it goes to the Windows XP logo, with the status bar below like it is starting, but the little dot hangs about 3/4 the way over, and it restarts and goes back to this page. Tried Recovery Console by booting from XP CD, typed "r" and "1" but then it asks for the adminitrator password. I don't have one. The passwords I use for other things do not work. What next?
Thanks,
Chuck

 

Consult your system documentation for the administrator password, most likely there isn't one, just hit enter; or it may be "admin"

 

Thanks! Will give it a try and let you know.

 

That worked..just hit "enter" - it is doing chkdsk /r and will let you know how it went.
Thanks again. Its always the simplest method that works.

 

Problem resolved. Thank you.