Stuck in Safe Mode

[Al Dubovick]

HP pavilion xf255 laptop with WinXPH SP1. Warranteed tech support has
expired.

System automatically boots to Safe Mode.

System Restore cannot find an entry point despite it being switched on
for over a month.

For the previous few weeks l aso had Scheduled Tasks running the ERUNT
registry backup utility 7 days per week for a few weeks. So I tried
running the recovery utility ERDNT a number of times, but it's
malfunctioning; reported that it couldn't restore the user
(administrator) registry, but did restore other elements of the
registry, but not good enough to get the machine to boot normally.

Damn laptop didn't come with WinXP Home setup CD due to HP's weird
low-buck licensing agreement with Microsoft. So in order to run the
Recovery Console (RC) I tried using a WinXP Pro OEM CD that was
purchased separately. It doesn't recognize my administrator password.

NOTE: when the system first auto-booted to Safe Mode it apparently lost
all user passwords, because it booted up as if it were a new system (no
password login field). So I went to CP > Users. Sure enough, no admin
password seen there, so I reentered it. Then I tried the RC of the nonHP
OEM setup CD again, but it returns "invalid password".

System included four HP System Recovery CDs instead of a WinXPH setup
CD. CD #1 includes an HP hardware diagnostics utility that reported all
hardware OK. Will I lose my data files, Software installations,
Scheduled Tasks and Windows settings if I run the HP System Recovery
program on the four CDs?

Is there anything else that I can try before resorting to those HP
System Recovery CDs?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[S.Sengupta]

Hello!
Start up your computer. When you are logged on go to run and type in
msconfig. Go to the BOOT.INI tab. Make sure all the boot options are
unchecked. Then restart you computer.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310353
with regards;
ssg/
pronetworks.org

 

[Al Dubovick]

BINGO!! Hey thanks a lot. That did the trick!

Want to let you know that I discovered something peculiar about the msconfig
utility. Msconfig opened on the General tab and I saw that the the following
was *unchecked*:
"Normal Startup -- load all drivers and services"

So before proceeding to the BOOT.INI tab as you advised, I first checked the
above setting "on". Then after *unchecking* the boot option /SAFEBOOT, I went
back to the General tab and lo and behold the Normal Startup option was again
unchecked. So once again I checked it "on", then wnt back again to take a look
at the BOOT.INI tab and found that the option /SAFEBOOT was again checked. So
I just unchecked /SAFEBOOT > Apply > OK and rebooted.

Odd that the system now boots normally, but msconfig indicates that Normal
Startup is still unchecked. Oh well...

Thanks again!