Unable to login to Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

[Killkebcal]

After receiving a Rassberry Pi 3 Model B from a friend, I decided to plug it in to an HDMI supported display and figure out what I might be able to do with it. I played around with it for a while, and while doing so encountered a problem with using the command "startx." I decided a restart might help, so I did just that. After restarting, I was greeted with a page that had a power button at the top right, as well as another option and language preference option. (I cannot say what the "other option" is, as I was not sure) In the center was what seemed to be a login page, asking me for a username and a password, just like any other operating system might. As to be expected, when I typed in anything other than "pi" and "raspberry," a blue box appeared telling me that the password was incorrect. But when I did type "pi" and "raspberry" into their respective boxes, the screen went black for a moment, followed by the screen I was just at, except that neither of the boxes were filled in. This happened every time I filled in the boxes with the aforementioned information, leading me here to ask for help. I would be grateful for any help, if you are willing to provide it. Thank you.

[VexisArcanum]

Did you start with a brand new OS image or did you just use the one your friend provided on the SD card?

[Killkebcal]

Did you start with a brand new OS image or did you just use the one your friend provided on the SD card?

The Raspberry Pi that I received was new and I didn't download a new OS image, so I suppose I just used the OS image that came out of the box.

[DougieLawson]

Did you start with a brand new OS image or did you just use the one your friend provided on the SD card?

The Raspberry Pi that I received was new and I didn't download a new OS image, so I suppose I just used the OS image that came out of the box.

Clean the card with the SD Assoc. formatter (or by sticking it in your phone or camera and choosing the format option).
Download a fresh copy of NOOBS 1.9.1
Unzip it
Copy the NOOBS stuff to the formatted card.

The folks who sold you that card need to have a visit from my educational baseball bat, they've clearly sent out a card that's too old to run with your shiny new hardware.

[Killkebcal]

Did you start with a brand new OS image or did you just use the one your friend provided on the SD card?

The Raspberry Pi that I received was new and I didn't download a new OS image, so I suppose I just used the OS image that came out of the box.

Clean the card with the SD Assoc. formatter (or by sticking it in your phone or camera and choosing the format option).
Download a fresh copy of NOOBS 1.9.1
Unzip it
Copy the NOOBS stuff to the formatted card.

The folks who sold you that card need to have a visit from my educational baseball bat, they've clearly sent out a card that's too old to run with your shiny new hardware.

Haha, thanks for the help. Just a quick question before I do anything: Is it possible to save any data I put on the SD card and place it back once the new image has been put onto the card? It wouldn't affect me too much to lose the data, but if I can transfer the data in a simple manner, then I wouldn't mind doing it.

[DougieLawson]

Buy another SDCard and a USB reader. Build NOOBS/Raspbian on the new SDCard, boot that and use it as a "rescue system" to recover your valuable data from the other SDCard.