strange finder problems, no menu bar or dock

My wife crashed iPhoto somehow, but as she'd finished what she was doing, just shut down.

Now when we start, we end up with no menu bar, no dock and though desktop items are clickable, they don't open. We've got auto login set for a "family" user, but when I disable that, by starting in safe mode, though I get the log in screen, if I click on a password protected account, I don't even get the password entry field. It just redraws the log in screen. There are two aCcounts without password protection, and if I click on either one of those, it logs strait into the account as normal, but neither account gets the menu bar or dock.

I've used the install disk to repair disk permissions, and tried to trash the com.apple.finder.plist file, but all the p.lists ate ghosted so can't do anything. I can't open terminal.

Any ideas?