Stuck in Safe Mode

Ugh. I have a pc running xp pro, sp2 that's been acting up (very sluggish, lots of freezes) Ran all the usual scans for probs and came up clean. Nary a virus, trojan, malware, etc. to be found. Decided to try to boot into safe mode to see if the same problems would be evident. Upon restart, the monitor went black, and I couldn't hear any disk activity after the win spash screen. Did a force shut down, and the same thing occurred upon rebooting. The 3rd time I pressed F10 to return to normal startup, and the computer won't let me exit safe mode. Even when I select "normal", the boot sequence is in safe mode. Decided to try to repair the os, and all went well, until the repair rebooted itself and gave me the error message "Windows XP Setup cannot run under Safe mode. Setup will restart now."
I click "ok" and so the cycle continues: the computer reboots, and the same error message appears. Again I hit f10 and tried to choose "normal" startup, but to no avail. I also ran diagnostics on my hardware and its all coming up clean. Any ideas? :confused: Thanks for any help!

Hi,

Can you still get into Safe Mode?
If so RUN
msconfig
Select the BOOT.INI tab and make sure /SAFEBOOT is not checked, then reboot

Elaine :)

Hi, Dunedin!
No, I can not boot into anything! Its so frustrating. When I restart, setup begins automatically and halts with the error message about safe mode, which is displaying as a black screen with safe mode text in the 4 corners. I can't seem to abort the setup (repair) or exit safe mode (by choosing normal startup after pressing f12). Any ideas how to break out of either the setup or the safe mode?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saslab

Decided to try to repair the os, and all went well, until the repair rebooted itself and gave me the error message "Windows XP Setup cannot run under Safe mode. Setup will restart now."

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In what way did you try to "repair" XP?

Are you able to boot from your Windows XP CD or is that bypassed?

Doc

I booted from the OS cd, went to install, pressed f8 to accept the terms, and pressed "r" to repair a current installation. It started the process normally, and upon the required reboot to complete installation (no, I didn't click to boot from cd or click "ok" to reboot; I let the pc do its own thing), it started up in safe mode. So when the error appeared, I clicked "ok", the computer rebooted itself, I pressed f12 and selected "normal" startup, and wouldn't you know, I'm locked in safe mode... and setup mode, too!

YAY! I think I've found a way out of this mess! I rebooted from the CD and into the recovery console. I thought I'd see what I could do with the bootcfg command, and voila! I used the command bootcfg /list to see what was in my bootcfg, and copied the information down. Then I entered the command bootcfg /rebuild and reentered the needed info. If you've never done this, and I had not, first you select the windows installation to use and enter the corresponding number (default is "1"); then it asks you to enter the load identified. I typed in "Microsoft Windows XP Professional", without the quotes. Lastly, it prompted for the OS load options. Here I typed in "fastdetect /noexecute=optin", again without quotes. I exited the console, windows restarted, and setup continued normally! Thanks for providing this forum... hope this helps anyone else who gets caught in the same mess! :)

That was very clever of you. Well done! :)

Now, just let me get this straight in my noddle.
As I understand this, the problem all stemmed from being stuck in Safe Mode. You had the bright idea of using the RC to fix the boot.ini (as I suggested checking from within XP earlier)
Please correct if this is wrong.

Elaine

Correct. Since I couldn't boot into safe mode, or normal mode, for that matter, and couldn't abort xp setup, my last ditch attempt was to use the rc... and say a few prayers since I no way qualify as a person who knows what I'm doing... :D

Thanks.

I wonder how it got stuck in Safe Mode in the first place :confused:

Moral of the story
Don`t try a Repair if you are stuck in Safe Mode.

Elaine :)

saslab

You are the man! Among other problems I've created for myself, my last ditch effort was to reinstall XP home on a PC w/ Media XP and then re-install Media XP from it's i386 file I was able to save. I'm not even sure it'll work but I couldnt continue the install until I could get it out of safe mode!

Thank's a bunch.. I'm sure I have more issues ahead..

You're more than welcome! Nice to know I could help. Let us know how it goes.

Okay, this sounds exactly the fix I need. Same situation, everything. But how do I get into recovery console, because whenever I boot from the XP disk, it just says "restarting setup..." and then takes me to the safemode error message?

Hello hxzero and welcome to VirtualDr :)

You have to put the XP installation CD in the drive and then reboot. If you are doing that, at what stage are you getting the error? Is it immediately or after the Windows Licence Agreement? The Recovery Console is the first "R" you come to straight after the files have been copied at the beginning of the process. Have a look at this

Figure 03
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_i..._-_graphic.htm

Disconnect all peripherals and remove all cards except video card
Try cleaning the CD as well.

Elaine

I don't even get any of those screens anymore. If I hit F8 at boot and choose the drive that the XP installation CD is in, it takes me to the light blue screen which says "Windows XP" at the top and this screen reads "Setup is restarting...........". It then gives me the same problem again. Would taking out the disk and trying again help anything?

EDIT: Okay, I can get into recovery console. Taking out the CD and putting it back in helped. Didn't think of that before.

Okay, I'm now doing the fix.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saslab

YAY! I think I've found a way out of this mess! I rebooted from the CD and into the recovery console. I thought I'd see what I could do with the bootcfg command, and voila! I used the command bootcfg /list to see what was in my bootcfg, and copied the information down. Then I entered the command bootcfg /rebuild and reentered the needed info. If you've never done this, and I had not, first you select the windows installation to use and enter the corresponding number (default is "1"); then it asks you to enter the load identified. I typed in "Microsoft Windows XP Professional", without the quotes. Lastly, it prompted for the OS load options. Here I typed in "fastdetect /noexecute=optin", again without quotes. I exited the console, windows restarted, and setup continued normally! Thanks for providing this forum... hope this helps anyone else who gets caught in the same mess! :)

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I've got the same problem and have been trying to go in the recovery console and when select 1 and hit enter it asks me to enter Adminitrator's password. I dont even know which password it is asking for?

Hello bluedemon https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

When asked for the password just hit Enter and see if it works.

The password it is asking for is whatever one was set when Windows was first installed, if any.

Hi, seen this on clients machines before, stuck in safe mode with the black screen and safe mode motifs at the four corners, at this stage hit ctrl+alt+del, and task manager will open select new task and type MSCONFIG press enter go to "boot ini" and uncheck "safeboot" restart to launch windows normally.

This thread celebrates its second anniversary tomorrow, and it's still not solved?:)

"This thread celebrates its second anniversary tomorrow, and it's still not solved?"

I'd like to say it's been solved ! I just found this post today & YES, it was very helpful. We were stuck in safe mode & choosing "normal boot" still did not get us out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jenae

Hi, seen this on clients machines before, stuck in safe mode with the black screen and safe mode motifs at the four corners, at this stage hit ctrl+alt+del, and task manager will open select new task and type MSCONFIG press enter go to "boot ini" and uncheck "safeboot" restart to launch windows normally.

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After following the above advice, we went right back to normal boot & everything is good. You saved a lot of grief & headache. THANK YOU ! !

:D

Hello dvotedsatelite https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Thanks for posting to tell us :)

Elaine

Thanks to these posts (i.e., by saslab) I'm using bootcfg /rebuild to address a similar issue with my XP setup. However, I mistyped a few things and now I have 3 entries in my bootcfg. I know how to "add" an entry to bootcfg, but is there a way to delete one of the boot options or clear the list entirely? I see the list of options under bootcfg including /default, /add, etc,... but nothing to clear or delete from the list. Any suggestions?

PS: this may very well be a 2-year old discussion, but I'm glad it is still active!

Hi, go to Control Panel | Folder Options; under the View tab, check show hidden files and folders and uncheck hide protected operating system files.

Next, go to your C: drive and open BOOT.INI; copy-&-paste it into your next post - OR - just below the QuickReply text window where you type a post to this thread, click the Manage Attachments button and upload that file as an attachment. We'll go from there.

Copy-&-paste is preferred.

BTW, welcome to VirtualDr!https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2009/05/1.gif

At the time I didn't have access to the Control Panel (i.e., could not get into Windows even w/SafeMode) so my question was more how to delete or clear the boot.ini file from within the windows bootcfg utility. Apparently (it seems) it's not possible to do so, but in any case it didn't really matter... I followed saslab's suggestion to create a boot option that pointed to the correct location for \WINDOWS, and then found it easier to not specify any OS load options (e.g., fastdetect) so that it would let me pick from the list. Alternatively, i found bootcfg /default to be handy too (i.e., in case I wasn’t present during the bootup sequence). Of course you can also type "bootcfg ?" at the prompt (w/o the quotes) to list all the bootcfg options.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank the VirtualDr discussion for being here! After our 2nd computer was basically dead for several weeks, I was on the verge of throwing in the towel and our computer out the window. I figured there must be a way to solve the issue and searched the web extensively (using our laptop) until I stumbled across an archive version of this thread. You guys (particularly saslab) saved me some big $$$ not having to buy a new computer. Hopefully we should be good for at least another year or so!...

Cheers, bbstuff

What do I do if I am stuck in SafeMode and I have no XP cd. Since I have a dell, it never came with a XP cd. What I was doing was, a repair on Windows XP from my winnt32.exe file, located in my I386 folder, while I was in safemode. XP setup had to restart and Now I am stuck in a loop because it always boots back into safemode and xp setup cannot operate in safemode. Help Please!!

https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2012/04/5.png


Boot up with a Win98 Startup floppy with CDROM support, then navigate to the i386 folder on the CD (at the A:> prompt type the letter of the cdrom drive, then "CD i386" without the quotes) Then at the X:\i386> prompt (where X: is the letter of the cdrom drive) type "Winnt.exe" - not Winnt32.exe. That will run the normal Windows Setup.

You can get a startup floppy here:

Bootdisks

Hello i seem to also have this problem altough the CTRL + ALT + Delete thing didnt work for me.

I cant seem to get on the recovery console either because i dont know the password. And I tried Blank I tried my old password before I reformatted my comp and nothing works.

anyone?

Thanks a bunch!!!!!..

To "saslab" for posting and "virtual dr" for hosting.
I was threading the thought of having to do a clean-install.
It wasn't much about losing my data. It was more of
re-setting each of my many programs one by one that
scared me.

Well,.."bootcfg /rebuild" in recovery console did the trick.

Thanks Saslab/Virtual Dr!

Hello marblehead https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

Glad we were able to help you :)

Did you find us with Google?


Elaine

I googled the issue and came up with this thread. I registered just to say thanks:)
As it goes the larger problem I was trying to fix still isn't resolved but at least I could find that out!

Well, thank you very much too :) It is always nice to know we have helped someone.

If you can`t get your problem solved, why not post it in a new thread here?


Elaine

i may have too... a clean install failed to resolve the problem (how often is that the case?) I'll start a thread now :confused:

Sorry guys for reviving this seems to be dormant thread. I follow the suggestions above:

1) run the bootcfg /REBUILD and enter the options above. When it restarted, it list two same Windows XP Proff Options and tried to select first, then the safe mode is still there. I tried the 2nd options and same thing happens.

2) run the bootcfg /REBUILD again, this time, I choose No load options and restart the system. Like on steps 2, I choose Microsoft XP 1 then same things happens , then option Microsoft Options 2, then Option 3, same thing happens.

3) Run in safe mode using choosing Microsoft XP Prof 1 , then 2 then 3, and I and press ctrl+alt+del, but I cannot enter the task manager.

Appreciate your help on this. Any other options? Or why I am not getting the desired result?

I had the same issue. Edits to the boot menu and Ctrl + alt+ del did nothing to stop loop. Then as a last ditch hope tried to do another repair install but this time with a Win Xp SP2 disk as the first disk i used was SP1 only and the machine was setup with SP2.

The repair has not copied required files and rebooted to finish the setup. Whilst its still setting up I no longer seem to be in the Safe mode loop.

Give that a try and let us now how it goes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Go_scottie

The repair has not copied required files and rebooted to finish the setup. Whilst its still setting up I no longer seem to be in the Safe mode loop.

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Sorry bad grammer and spelling there.

It HAS copied the setup files and is now just Finalizing the installation.

How sad that 2 years ago I had this problem and it still manifests itself. On the other hand, I'm glad that several of us have been able to resolve the problem on our machines! Still pondering the problems of those for whom the fix doesn't work...

Have you considered this could be the BSOD? (blue screen of death)

Windows XP can be set up to handle critical errors in different ways, one is to reboot into safemode. It's also possible that you don't recieve any error messages once booted into SM. To check this:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

2. Click the Advanced tab.

3. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.

4. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.

5. Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

Reboot and see how you system behaves.

After that, like an earlier post said, I would then remove all peripherals, reboot and check. If you are still suffer from the problem then I would start to remove any PCI cards you may of installed (pc off first!) - this could be a driver issue - or a faulty piece of hardware that causes the machine to reboot - but in safe mode it will be disable or the features that are causing the problem are not enabled.

Obviously try the above after you have done the first step of unticking Safemode in msconfig.

You could then do a disk check by typing CHKDSK in the RC or in SM, right click the C: drive, properties, tools, error checking - check now, tick the top box and click "yes" to the question that pops up and reboot.

The last point is, that sometimes, just every now and again - a windows installation can be completely broken and no matter of repair installing or boot configuring can sort the problem. In this case, get out a trusty Ubuntu live cd (v7 upwards), boot up from CD. Now you can use the live CD to browse your HD and move anything to a safe location that you want to keep before dong a fresh install.

Good luck!

Only thing is BigBrain that the system is so stuffed in most peoples cases they cant do anything in Windows no matter what mode they enter into.

Either the machine locks up on loading bar for Normal boot or Safe Mode they are told they cannot finish setup in safe mode - machine rebooting.

You can carry out a check disk without booting into safemode. Use your Windows installation disc to boot windows setup, when windows setup detects current version of windows installed, you can shoose R to go into the recovery console, here you can run the CHKDSK command.

If your machine is restarting when you are doing a fresh install, then this can indicate either a corrupt installation source/cd, memory failure, cpu overheating, pci card/s failing or another peice of hardware malfunctioning. In this scenario you would have to remove everything from your case apart from the basics need to do a test install. (VGA,MEM,HD,CD) Unplug everything else.
If your machine still reboots after that when doing a fresh install, try alternate MEM then HD then MB etc....

Yeah I know the CHkDSK from recovery console but it doesn't appear to fix a hung repair install of XP.

I found that the Setup XP CD has to be of the same service pack as the OS being repaired, as files are newer on the HDD then the CD. So a SP2 XP install CD is required is SP2 installed on PC. Its not Hardware that causes this sadistic XP Loop.