Cannot logon to XP pro workstation

We installed XP pro on a new machine. After the installion was complete the login screen came up, but it did not let you logon as the Admin or as the created users.. It gives an error message about cannot login to the domain… We do not have a NTdomain.. we run novell…

The only way I was able to fix the error was completly reinstall XP without the workstation being connected to the network.. then load the Novell client and it worked just fine…

any ideas why this happens??