Perhaps I'm missing something (wouldn't be the first time), BUT you didn't say if you were on a network or not. Some things to try; Telnet, rlogin, remsh to the box in question and do a repair on the file useing VI. You could also try to dump a correct version of the file to the box via rcp or ftp. You also didn't say if it was just CDE not starting OR the actual unix login. BTW does the box that you are working on have a console port that you could plug a terminal into?????