HELP!

...got up this morning to start work and my system seems to be frozen or somthing. I opened FCP and as soon as I made my first adjustments, the screen stood still. I closed and restarted [using the keyboard] and now the only thing that is accessible using my mouse is Spotlight. **Whatever I click using the mouse only brings up the Spotlight.** But my keyboard seems to work ok...
what is up here?

I just restarted again and now my mouse can select the main menu on the desktop, but I cannot find or select the dock. Plus, the mouse is not selecting the main menu precisely, it selects intermittently. Help?

Might be your mouse. Un plug it and plug it back in. Got another mouse to try?

yes, I have a logitech laser mouse and it has always worked great. I tried unplugging it and using the standard Mac Mouse but both are behaving the same way.

Press OPTION-APPLE-D. Does the Dock come back? Try other shortcuts from OS (eg. APPLE-O for Open, SHIFT-APPLE-N for New Folder, APPLE-F for Find). Do they work? If OS is functional with the keyboard but not with the mouse, then you can narrow it down to being a mouse issue. Try the mice on another computer -- do they work perfectly?

Tried another USB port? Maybe a keyboard issue? Or maybe its the OS. If so, then at very least boot up with the install disk and repair it and see if that helps

I am still experienceing navigation issues. My keyboard seems to work fine as I am able to execute tasks including activating the dock via keystrokes. But neither of my mice, the logitech or the apple mouse, bring it up the dock, marqee in FCP or many of the basic navigation functions.
What is the next step in troubleshooting the source of this problem?

Repair permissions. If that doesn't help run a disk utility such s Disk Warrior.

Did you do anything between it working and not working that you remember? Install anything?