Welcome Screen missing language icon—cannot login

[Lucian33]

Hello,

I recently changed the language for the welcome logon password for my laptop from English (EN) to Ancient Greek (EL). I am the only user and there is only one account on my laptop. Before doing this, there always used to be a language icon, next to the ease of access button, allowing me to change the language. Now the first time I logged off after making this change, the language icon has disappeared and I can no longer get past the welcome screen. I never made a password resert disk, as I didn't know there was such a thing. I have not forgotten my password, rather windows will no longer let me change the language so I can input the right characters. I called microsoft technical suppport, and since the laptop came with vist home premium pre-installed, they gave three options: pay $60 to get help over the phone, call the manufacturer of my laptop, Asus, or look for an answer on miscosoft's tech page.

At this point, I am desperate, this feels like a simple problem that can't be fixed. I have tried left Alt + left Shift numerous times, and my brother suggested I try ctrl + alt + 1 and + 2. I tried last known good configuration and safe mode to no avail... if only that damned language icon would come back.. how could it disappear? I've seen posts elsewhere where people asked if they could and they were told no. Asus told me that system restore would fix it but that I'd need to back up my data, and that Best Buy could do that. Since I wanted to switch to Windows 7 eventually, I went with the disk that came free with my notebook so that I could upgrade—two birds, one stone. I went to Best Buy, still under warranty, but was told by their Geek Squad that since it was a software issue that my warranty didn't cover it. they quoted two figures, can't remember what for exactly, one for $130 for a backup and system restore/recovery (I forget which) and the other $99 for something to do with installing Windows 7, and they also said that since I couldn't get past the welcome screen, they'd have to take out the hard drive and mount it elsewhere to back it up. I may be wrong, but not about how much they wanted to charge for something so stupid I did that shouldn't even possibly be a problem. ughh, since I don't know what I'm doing with hardware, now I need to find a friend who knows who to treat an internal hard drive like an external one, and with the requisite equipment, unless someone can give me a solution.

In any case, thanks for your time
Lucian