Mac stuck on login

Hi all, my friend has an iMac that won't boot up past the login screen, where it just hangs. The problem started after an ipod was not disconnected properly. Could it be that the iMac is looking for the ipod because it still thinks it is connected and cannot continue to boot properly as a result?

Any help would be very much appreciated

Thanks

Andy

what O/S is it X. if so u can boot and do a fix.restore option

not sure which O/S it is, although i've found something on the apple support site to either use the disk utility to fix it or fsck. we'll see my friend isn't keen on anyone doing anything with it.

Thanks

Andy