In-Place Upgrade (Reinstall XP Pro)

[Greg]

Computer had previously had viruses. Could not get sfc to
run to check system files. Decided to reinstall XP Pro.
After setup restarted system, all I get is an box that
says "Windows XP setup cannot run under safe mode. Setup
will restart now." When the computer reboots, it does the
same thing. I tried to boot into safe mode, but I get the
black screen with Safe Mode in the corners, but the same
box with the same "cannot run under safe mode" message.
Why am I getting this message? Why does the system think
it is in safe mode, or if it really is in safe mode, WHY?
Can somebody please help me!!

Thanks!

P.S. I cannot boot into the recovery console because the
administrator's password is not known. The computer
belonged to a young man who was killed in an auto
accident recently. His parents desperately want this
computer repaired without formatting and reisntalling,
but since he was the only one who knew the password, that
keeps me from being able to use the recovery console.

 

[Guest]

Hello. I'm having the same problem and no one has replied to my post. See "Windows XP Help and Support". You could try installing a clean copy of XP in another folder (i.e. C:\WINNT\) to bring up the O/S. At least the file system will be accessible. You may also be able to use files from \System32\Repair folder, which I'm going to try tonight, but this is a bit more agressive. If someone responds to my post, I'll be sure to let you know.
Good Luck,
Rein

 

[Guest]

Did you reinstall in explorer,you need to reinstall by booting
to xp cd,this way the hd is reformatted and a sure elimination
of virus(s).

 

[Guest]

No, I did not reformat the drive before installing. All
viruses had been removed, but I suspected that there was
damage to the system files. That was why I elected to try
to do an inplace reinstall of XP Pro. I booted to the CD,
pressed enter for XP setup, and chose to repair the
current installation. As soon as setup copied all of the
files and rebooted, I got the message "windows XP setup
cannot run under safe mode". And now, no matter how I try
to boot the machine, that is all I can get. As I stated
in my first post, the parents of the young man that this
computer belonged to did not want to lose ANY of the data
that was on this machine if at all possible. But at this
point, I do not know what to do since no matter what I do
all I can get is this message that "windows XP setup
cannot run under safe mode."

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the support!!! Hopefully someone can answer
the question for both of us. I too will let you know if I
get an answer to the problem!

-----Original Message-----
Hello. I'm having the same problem and no one has

replied to my post. See "Windows XP Help and Support".
You could try installing a clean copy of XP in another
folder (i.e. C:\WINNT\) to bring up the O/S. At least the
file system will be accessible. You may also be able to
use files from \System32\Repair folder, which I'm going
to try tonight, but this is a bit more agressive. If
someone responds to my post, I'll be sure to let you
know.

 

[mftooley]

-----Original Message-----
Computer had previously had viruses. Could not get sfc to
run to check system files. Decided to reinstall XP Pro.
After setup restarted system, all I get is an box that
says "Windows XP setup cannot run under safe mode. Setup
will restart now." When the computer reboots, it does the
same thing. I tried to boot into safe mode, but I get the
black screen with Safe Mode in the corners, but the same
box with the same "cannot run under safe mode" message.
Why am I getting this message? Why does the system think
it is in safe mode, or if it really is in safe mode, WHY?
Can somebody please help me!!

Thanks!

P.S. I cannot boot into the recovery console because the
administrator's password is not known. The computer
belonged to a young man who was killed in an auto
accident recently. His parents desperately want this
computer repaired without formatting and reisntalling,
but since he was the only one who knew the password, that
keeps me from being able to use the recovery console.
.
Don't know if this will help or not but there is a way

to reset the password if your reinstall hasn't gone too
far. Reboot to Safe Mode, select
Administrator, leave password
blank.
Then go to User Accounts in Control Panel.
Select the user and change the password.
If you are using Windows XP Pro and have encrypted data,
you may
permanently lose access to the encrypted data.
The way I actually did it was to Reboot the computer in
Safe Mode(function
key F8), go to Control Panel/User Accounts/select
Administator. You can
then configure it with a new password. After that you
can also set a new
password for the User that has been lost/forgotten.
There is the
possibility that some individual files may still be
inaccessible or lost
under XP PRO but I used it with XP Home with no
problems. It sure beats
shelling out $70-$100 or losing everthing by re-
installing.
If you feel that the system files are not still corrupt
or infected you should be able to get to the Repair
option from the install cd and selecting install, not the
recovery console.
Good Luck

 

[Greg]

Thanks for the suggestion. Only problem is that I cannot
boot to safe mode. No matter how I try to boot the
system, all I get is the messgage that "Windows XP setup
cannot run under safe mode. Setup will now restart." Any
other ideas???