No icons on startup task manager freezes (xp)

Hello,
i know there have been many threads regarding this topic but i have a little twist in this problem my taskmanager shows up when i press ctrl alt del,it shows all the processes however there is no system usage. i can kill explorer.exe but i cant run it again or open another process tried hijackthis but it didnt work..cant get the system to restore as it is disabled
waiting for your reply...