White screen after login

Ahoy guys, i've had a wee look around on the forum to see if anyone else has a similar problem and have tried their suggestions but it doesn't seem to work.
I've not long had my laptop and it's been running fine up until this afternoon. I had it on this morning and there was no problems, but i turned it on tonight, logged in and it took a lot longer than usual to log me in. It then just shows a white screen and opens up my documents window, and doesn't do anything else. i can use task manager to open up firefox or iTunes and when i minimize them they go into little windows along where the taskbar should be. I've got a lot of music and photos on there that i don't want to lose so if anyone could suggest anything that won't involve me completely formatting my computer that'd be graaand!
Cheers!

hello
the fist thing you should do is back up everything while you still can! (just in case it's something serious)
Do you have an external drive? if no run up to walmart or office supply store and get some dvds, start burning.
Can you enter in safe mode and see your desktop?
Do you have a set of recovery discs?
Can you enter your account and set up another admin account?

good luck and keep us posted!!