Vista - Stuck at safe mode loading screen.

[Guest]

I'm on Vista 32 bit. Today while trying to access safe mode to scan my laptop
for malware, I kept getting stuck at the safe mode loading screen when trying
to load safe mode. It seems that I always get stuck after a driver loads. If
I'm not wrong, the driver is something called crcdisk or crc something. I
used to be able to enter safe mode until recently.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Boot from your Windows
Vista DVD, select the System Repair Option > on the setup screen, select
'Repair Computer > Select your installation of Windows > select Startup
Repair option and follow instructions.

 

[Guest]

Will that in any way erase any data from my hard drive or modify my system
settings? If not, then that I would definitely try it since it seems very
feasible.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

your files and system settings will not be affected.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. However, safe mode still will not load for me...

When I selected Repair Computer, a popup said that I had 1 problem so I
allowed it to restart and fix the problem. After it was fixed, I went to
Startup Repair and no problems were found. When I load safe mode from the
Vista DVD, it works.

However, when I boot from HDD and load safe mode, it just hangs after
loading drivers\disk.sys, drivers\CLASSPNP.sys and then drivers\crcdisk.sys.
When I load safe mode through Vista DVD, the last safe mode file that was
loaded was drivers\disk.sys.

The HDD LED indicator above my laptop's keyboard remains on after the last
driver got loaded in safe mode (HDD safe mode, not vista dvd safe mode).
However, safe mode still doesn't start even though the indicator says that my
HDD is doing some stuff...

Is this an error with my drivers\CLASSPNP.sys and drivers\crcdisk.sys?

 

[Guest]

Don't know if this is appropriate but... Bump =/

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

The crcdisk is not an issue. This is simply the last file that loads before
safe mode starts.

Safe Mode can take a long time to finally load after you see the 'loading
files' screen, make sure you are giving it enough time. I have seen systems
that can take ten minutes or more.

 

[Guest]

Before I followed Andre De Costa's fix, I tried loading safe mode and took a
nap for a few hours... When I woke up, still the same screen... And it didn't
take long to load safe mode before, only a couple of minutes. Should I enable
boot logging and post details here?

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Strange.

Here are some things to try.

Have you installed any new hardware recently? If so, you might try removing
that hardware and then try safe mode again.

Make sure that you don't have any external drives (USB sticks, external hard
drives, etc) connected when you try safe mode.

Do you use a third party boot loader? If you are dual booting, and you use
one of these programs, look for an option in that program that might be
interferring with booting to safe mode.

Boot to Normal Mode. Press WINKEY+R. In the Run dialog box, type
regedit.exe and click OK.

In the registry editor, navigate to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot

Just make sure that the SafeBoot key is in that location.

Let us know the results.

 

[Guest]

Haven't installed any new hardware and didn't have any USB drives or whatnot
plugged into my laptop when I tried to enter safe mode.

Only thing in the USB hubs was a USB mouse which didn't cause any problems
with safe mode before and I even tried unplugging it but to no avail.

I do not dual-boot. However, I do use a modified boot logo (a picture other
than the default "Windows is Loading" screen). It shouldn't have any effect
on safe mode though..

I see a SafeBoot folder in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control so I guess that means
it's there...

A little out of topic here: I haven't been able to schedule error-checking
(right click a drive in My Computer > Tools > Error-checking.) for a very
long time. I use Fix-It utilities 7 Professional to scan my disk for problems
though so maybe that's whats conflicting with the error-checking utility in
Windows since I installed it the day I got my laptop which had Vista in it.

But of course, my main problem is still with safe mode


Thanks for the assistance and I apologize for all the inconvenience caused
due to my problems with safe mode...

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

No need to apologize for anything.

It's just that this particular behavior with safe mode is not very common
and the only references to this that I can find are the result of malware
infections that delete the safemode keys in the registry?

A lot of people replace the boot logo image, so I doubt that this would
cause the problem, but it wouldn't hurt to set that logo back to the default
and test just to make sure.

You might also want to check the support website for the fix-it utilities
for any know issues that might be associated with this behavior.

These are longshots, but we need to check everything.

Also, do you have an installation disk for Vista or was it pre-loaded on the
system?

 

[Guest]

I used Housecall online scan by trendmicro and it didn't detect anything. I
also used AVG antispyware, spyware terminator and spybot S&D to scan and
nothing was found. Same goes with my symantec antivirus... Fix-it utilities
support site wasn't any help at all.

My laptop was pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium but I upgraded to Business
edition so I have the Business edition DVD with me.

 

[Guest]

Having more than one antivirus program running at once can cause problems.

 

[Guest]

Umm my Symantec Antivirus is the one installed on my laptop while the
Housecall Online scan is a scan executed from trendmicros website, which
means the Housecall Online scan is not installed on my computer, only the
java components needed to run the online scan...

 

[ingredients1]

Bump...

Problem still unsolved...