windows 7 will not proceed past "welcome"

Glad that you got it working.

Sorry that I was not clear on when to tap F8. I looked for a good YouTube video to add to that post, but did not find one.

I hope that your offsite backup really had the files that you thought it did. Too often I find that people trust the default settings for apps like Carbonite, iDrive, Mozy... only to learn that some files were never being backed up. As long as you know where the files are that you want backed up, then those programs work pretty well. Sadly, some of those programs automatically exclude "large" video files. I guess home movies are not important.

you are right about the backups, of course, but something is better than nothing, which is what I had. worst part is reloading all the softwares.......dont know why none of the recovery/restore options (that you helped me access) did not work, restoring to factory settings was a last resort, but it was the only thing that worked. thanks again.

Oh, well, glad to know you got things sorted out!