[tam2000k2]

That worked perfectly. I had to modify my code to retrieve $salt first, so for anyone else who needs it.

 // connect to mysql 
 $mysql = mysql_connect('localhost','adminusername','adminpassword'); 
 
 // fail on database errors 
 if (!$mysql) 
 {     die('false|Could not connect to MySQL'); } 
 
	 // connect to the database 
	 mysql_select_db('forumdb', $mysql); 
	 
$username = $_POST['username']; 
$password = $_POST['password']; 

$query = mysql_query("SELECT salt FROM tvgvbuser WHERE username='". $username ."'");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($query);

$salt = $row["salt"];

$password = md5(md5($password) . $salt);


$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM tvgvbuser WHERE username='". $username ."' AND password='". $password ."'"); 
$result = mysql_num_rows($query); 
$row = mysql_fetch_array($query); 

if ($result == 1) 
{ 
    $_SESSION["user"] = $row["username"]; 
     
    echo 'Welcome, '. $row["username"].' . Please fill out our spam verification and post your comments.

<p>
	  <label for="comment-email">Email Address:</label>
	  <input id="comment-email" name="email" size="30" />
   </p>
</div>

<p>
   <label for="comment-url">URL:</label>
   <input id="comment-url" name="url" size="30" />
</p>
<p>
   <label for="comment-bake-cookie"><input type="checkbox"
	  id="comment-bake-cookie" name="bakecookie" onClick="if (!this.checked) forgetMe(document.comments_form)" value="1" />
	  Remember personal info?</label>
</p>
</div>

<p id="comments-open-text">
<label for="comment-text">Comments: </label>
<textarea id="comment-text" name="text" rows="15" cols="50"></textarea>
</p>
<div id="comments-open-footer" class="comments-open-footer">


<input type="submit" accesskey="v" name="preview" id="comment-preview" value="Preview" />
<input type="submit" accesskey="s" name="post" id="comment-post" value="Post" />
	'; 
} 
else 
{ 
    echo 'Wrong combination of User Name and Password. Did you forget your Password? <a href="http://forums.tvgasm.com/login.php?do=lostpw" target="_blank"> Click here to retrieve it.</a>'; 
} 

?>

Thank you very much for your assistance. :-)