Let’s set the scene. The goal of this post is to put you into the shoes of a computer tech when he encounters a computer that won’t boot into safe mode.
So you arrive at work and you sit down at your computer with a nice hot cup of brew in hand. Things have been going well for you lately and you are feeling like this is going to be another really productive day for you. You fire up your computer and start with your normal routine of checking your email and maybe some news on the internet. Then it happens. Your computer freezes up on you and you have no choice but to just hold in the power button on your computer and power it off. You go ahead and power on your machine again and see if it will boot up before you go calling your computer department. The results are not what you expect. During boot, your computer freezes up and just reboots. Ok, time to call your ‘computer guy’.
For the sake of conversation, let’s call the ‘computer guy’ John.
John arrives at your desk and may start by asking a few questions such as:
- When did this start happening?
- What programs were you using, or what specifically were you doing when your computer locked up?
After recreating the problem of the computer not booting correctly, John figures that the issue has to be one of these 4 things:
- There could be a possible virus or spyware problem that you did not even notice
- There could be a corrupt driver for a hardware component
- The hard disk may be going bad
- There could be corrupt system files not allowing the computer to boot
John then proceeds to boot the computer into safe mode. You can boot into safe mode by following these steps:
- Make sure you computer is powered off
- Turn your computer on and start hitting the F8 key
- An Advanced Boot Menu will come up with an option to boot into safe mode
As the computer is booting into safe mode, there are a list of files that will scroll on the screen. However, John notices that the boot process is stuck on one of these files and the computer has stalled. A lot of times safe mode can get hung on files such as mup.sys and agp440.sys.
Well, this is not good. If the computer won’t boot into safe mode, then John will need to take another direction in order to try and fix the computer. At this point, John decides to run a test on the hard drive to make sure that it is not bad. Most new computers have these diagnostic tools built into them. They can be accessed via the BIOS or from the Advanced Boot Menu. The test results for the hard drive come back as ‘passed’. So at this point, we know that the hard drive is good.
The next step John will take is to run a repair on the Operating System as the problem is most likely due to a corrupt system file. This process can take about 30 to 40 minutes, but the success rate is pretty good.
After running the repair, John boots the computer into safe mode and YEAH, it worked!
Now comes the big test. Will the computer start in regular mode? Heck yes. He reboots and the computer safely boots into regular mode. At this point, John should run a full virus scan and also run a program such as Malwarebytes to make sure there is no trace of spyware or malware.
I hope this scenario will help you if your computer won’t boot into safe mode. Let me also state that these steps are not always the fix, but are the most logical steps to fixing this problem.
Feel free to post a question via a comment and I will do my best to help you out!
Cheers.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I am at my desktop computer and it won’t boot up and does not go into safe mode. I tried to use the last known configuration and it just keeps cycling. I am assuming it’s a registry error but I do not know how to go about fixing it. Do I bring to a service person?
It’s possible you may need to get a technician involved, but there is one thing you could try before doing that. You could try doing a Windows repair. You can do this by booting off of your original Operating System CD.
Cf freeze??
I didnt reboot from a CD I got it from a friend 5 years ago no disk with it.
5 years old, if I replace the HD will I lose my pictures and music. I’m basically just trying to save my pictures.
Hello,
I have a dell 1521 laptop and runs on windows vista.My computer will not log on at all. It’s starts up then says ” windows error recovery” I then start it up for automatic repairs but it then says ” windows cannot repair automatically”. I don’t have a previous location or time to restore from either. If I try to start it in safe mode it redirects and goes back to the error screen.
Ronny: I am going to guess that when you get the ‘windows cannot repair automatically’ error that you have booted from your Vista CD. A very important question that needs to be answered before moving forward is when you boot from your CD and select repair, does the repair function actually find an installation of Vista? Meaning, does it show up in the little window? Report back and we can move forward from there.
How old is your laptop? I ask because it could be the HD is start to go bad.
Hello..
I really hope that you can help me with this because I’m really sad.
I have a hp pavilion Vista, and I noticed like at the end of last year A LOT of noises and over heating from it…but nothing happened except that.
But after like almost months from that time, the laptop started to act weird like make a looooot of noises and the heating is burning and after that, it shut down with its own
I said “Okay” I might have over worked with watching vids and that, but recentley, it started to shut down with its own after over heating with even opening just one page with article.
I decided to use Restore System, to restore it to a point, but everytime I try doing that it says that the system have errors and to fix it, it should not be in use, so restarted it and shutted down it, and after all that, it says to me something like that, “checking.. can’t acess volume” Not sure what were the words excatly. But it didn’t work.
I tried to go into the Safe Mode, but everytime I try it won’t boot up with me…
Reemy: Sorry to hear about your computer problems…let’s see if we can help you out! I am going to assume that you have a desktop computer and not a laptop.
1. The first thing you should do with a computer you know is overheating is to take the side of the case off and inspect the insides of the computer. It’s ways a great idea to unplug all of the power cables to your computer and then use a sweeper to clean out dust…especially around the fan areas. Just be sure not to touch any of the electronic while doing so.
2. As for the most recent problem you are encountering, it almost sounds like your system restore disk is not able to find the hard drive. This could be the result of all of the sudden shutdowns your computer was experiencing because of it overheating.
Feel free to comment with the exact errors you are getting and we can be more specific in our help.
My pc i susspect is infected with malware or a virus or somethingMai after someone I believe downloaded limewire or bearshare or something–they can’t remember they say. Great! I have vista and my pc is only 2 years old. I have tried everything it seems. My hp pc will not start in safe mode at all. I cannot log on in safe mode. It freezes too quicky for me to run a system repair. I don’t know what to do and can’t exactly afford for a professional to look at it. I am on my daughter’s computer right now. I have tried the F8 key and i can access it but it freezes before it can do anything. I ran a diagnostic test by pressing F11 I believe and all passed except for Memory test: Failed Memory (2048MB) Error Code: BIOME-1. I don’t know what to do next. I thought for sure this post was my answer.
Marie:
I am sorry to hear of your mis-fortune with your computer. People tend to often say they ‘can’t remember’ when these types of problems come up.
It is very possible that your computer is freezing due to having a bad memory module. That is where I would start first because the diag actually failed and produced an error.
I would start by pulling the side of the PC tower off and removing one of the memory chips. Try booting into safe mode after removing each memory module.
The goal would be to isolate the bad memory chip.
Please report back and let us know what you find!
my computer starts as hp computers do with f keys choices then if left it attemts to boot then it stops with a flashing curser but no sysyem loads. i can get in to boot menu and set up but nothing afer that. can anyone help.
Adrian: There are a few things I need to know before we can move ahead to further troubleshooting. Will your computer boot into safe mode? You can access safe mode by hitting the F8 key as soon as you start the computer up. There are 3 things I suspect could be the problem here: 1. A Bad Hard Drive, 2. Corrupt boot files or 3. Malware/Spyware infection. Let us know if safe mode is accessible or not.
my computer freezes while loading safe mode. trying to restore it as it is failing to load the operating system.
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