Cannot start in safe mode

[Guest]

I recently had a crash and my computer kept starting over and over and
over... the only way to stop it was to boot into my CD drive. I wound up
having to reformat my hard drive and re-install everything I own back on it.
Wow... what a mess. No, I didn't have a backup... (don't start!). I know
better. Anyway, I was trying to use the Recovery console on the Windows XP
CD and really could get nowhere with it. I called a local computer store
and they told me to try booting into Safe Mode. I could do that while
pressing F8. Nope.. F8 never DID work. I'm back up and running now and I
was following some instructions on the Microsoft web site and it, too, told
me to press F8 after choosing "restart" and after it asked me which system I
wanted to boot into. Hey folks, it doesn't ASK that question and I can sit
on the F8 key all day and it just goes right on into Windows XP as big as you
please. Please tell me how to get into Safe Mode the right way so, the next
time I do this, I can at least get back to my last good backup. Thanks.

 

[TaurArian [MS-MVP]]

If F8 doesn't work for you, then use the System Configuration Utility
How to start Windows XP in Safe mode - explains how
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2001060608000039


--

===========================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2006
===========================
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
"Need more help? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=ph;en-us;6527

 

[Guest]

Hello Diane, At the risk of being very simplistic, some keyboards have a
button that toggles the function keys on and off. If the function keys are
not enabled, you can whack them forever and they will do nothing. Perhaps
this is your problem?

Regards, RM

 

[Guest]

If you can boot normally in Windows then:

click on Start - Run
type msconfig and press enter key
click on the BOOT.INI tab
under the "Boot Options" check the /SAFEBOOT

use msconfig carefully. when you don't need safe mood again uncheck that
option.

Hope for best and let us know.!

 

[Guest]

Uhhhh..... I *did* mention that the ONLY way I could boot up the machine to
ANYTHING, was by changing BIOS to boot into the Windows XP *CD*. All of the
suggestions here, with the exception of the one about the keyboard (which it
wasn't a keyboard problem, but thanks.) wanted me to start Windows XP and
sign in. I couldn't GET into Windows XP, in any shape or form. The F8 key
wouldn't work, no matter when I started tapping it. That was my problem....
I, *at least* wanted to get into safe mode and couldn't get there. The
machine just kept restarting over and over again when I tried to let it start
up normally. I changed the BIOS so that it would search the CD drive first
and that was the only way I could get in and that went into that "console"
thing and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Thanks anyway.

If F8 doesn't work for you, then use the System Configuration Utility
How to start Windows XP in Safe mode - explains how
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2001060608000039


--

===========================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2006
===========================
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
"Need more help? http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=ph;en-us;6527

I recently had a crash and my computer kept starting over and over and
over... the only way to stop it was to boot into my CD drive. I wound up
having to reformat my hard drive and re-install everything I own back on it.
Wow... what a mess. No, I didn't have a backup... (don't start!). I know
better. Anyway, I was trying to use the Recovery console on the Windows XP
CD and really could get nowhere with it. I called a local computer store
and they told me to try booting into Safe Mode. I could do that while
pressing F8. Nope.. F8 never DID work. I'm back up and running now and I
was following some instructions on the Microsoft web site and it, too, told
me to press F8 after choosing "restart" and after it asked me which system I
wanted to boot into. Hey folks, it doesn't ASK that question and I can sit
on the F8 key all day and it just goes right on into Windows XP as big as you
please. Please tell me how to get into Safe Mode the right way so, the next
time I do this, I can at least get back to my last good backup. Thanks.