Stuck in Safe Mode

Thank you for attempting to address the difficulty I'm having. Unfortunately, because the article you reference outlines steps which can only be effected by logging on to Windows XP to begin with, it does not provide a solution. The inability to logon to Windows is in fact at the root of the very problem I'm having (logging on to Windows when trapped in the Setup/SafeMode Loop of Death is an impossibility). It seems that the solution to the problem would have to come from outside the confines of the operating system itself.

Any other ideas? Anyone?

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Originally Posted by RailSz

... no solution has posted for the user (like me, for instance) who can't access the RC because he can not for his life rediscover what Administrator Password he established during XP installation (and I did indeed establish a password of some kind...'Enter' does not serve).

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Unfortunately, our "Acceptable Use Policy" does not allow us to help you obtain access to any system with a forgotten password.

Jupitermedia AUP Agreement
http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/privacy/aup.html

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By using these Forums, you agree to the following:

• You will not use these Forums for the purposes of sharing ... information designed to ... allow unlawful access to any computer hardware, software, networks, or any other systems.

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Thanks again for your quick responses. The fact is that I gave in to the Setup/SafeMode Loop of Death since my last post, and overwrote the HD using a 7 pass algorithm...reformatted...and reinstalled XP pro. As to the Jupitermedia AUP, I concede respectfully, and hope to return to this forum for guidance the next time I try fixing what isn't broken in the first place.

Talk to you next week then! :D

You're welcome. Good to hear the problem's been solved and, thanks for understanding.

Hope to see you here again soon. :)

Hello all,

Like many others, I'm also going through the "safety mode loop of death" with the windows repair utility saying that it cannot run in safe mode. I have a new wrinkle to add - although I do want to say thanks for all the useful information upto this point.

My situation:
I run the bootcfg /rebuild and remove the "/safeboot:network" from the OS line. I restart the computer and then see a blue screen with something along the lines of "there was an error and your computer must be shutdown to avoid damage" (I'm paraphrasing since I'm at work right now ).

So I restart, and do another bootcfg /rebuild and keep the original parameters (ie - I put back the safeboot part back in) and I'm happy to find (about as happy as I can be in this situation) that the computer does load normally - albeit back into safemode.

I'm 100% sure I'm using bootcfg correctly, it just doesn't seem to work for me.

On a side note, another poster made the note about installing a Windows XP CD with the same Service Pack this is currently on your computer. My CD is SP1, and I did upgrade to SP2 later on. I will try this once I find a SP2 CD, since it sounds like this will solve the problem.

So consider this my thank you / help me / I think I solved the problem message.

Slipstream it since you have XP SP1.

Download and burn SP3 to cd for future use.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Slipstream instructions:

Creating a slipstreamed CD

Slipstreaming WinXP with SP2

Installing WinXP & SP2 with one CD

Now once you have done that sfc /scannow will run correctly.

Train - Thanks for the quick response and the tips. Luckily, I was able to get a copy of XP with SP2 from a friend.
For the record: Everything appears to be working now! For some reason, the bootcfg /reload works with SP2 and not SP1. I guess there was something different in the programming. In any case, I was able to disable safe mode and XP is now doing its normal thing.

Thanks for posting back. Good to hear all is well.

I got stuck in the Safe mode loop

I got stuck in the Safe mode loop, while I came here, and tried everyones responses, the CTRL+ALT+DEL did nothing, saslab's seems to help quite a bit, it got me to the setup and while it looks like my computer is going to finish it's setup and work regularly then with about 10 minutes left and the Bluescreen of death appears, so I'm stuck with the Loop of Death or the BlueScreen

Like cjones I also have tried the above suggestions but none have worked. This problem is still around but appears to have evolved into something more complicated.

If anyone has resolved this safe mode loop recently with a new solution please share!

Thanks

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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 took this advice. Thank you saslab, dunedin and everyone else so much for the help you've provided these past four or so years haha. It was JUST the advice an IT dinosaur like me needed.

Here's the step by step process covering what I went through:

1. Upon restarting, my computer got stuck into a blank state - black coloured screen with 'safe mode' on all four corners of the screen.

2. Scrambled through my dusty box containing "reinstallation programs" and found the browny red "operating system" reinstallation CD.

3. Inserted Reinstallation CD into CD drive

3. Switched computer off at power and turned it back on.

4. Pressed 'F12' immediately after the DELL logo appeared.

5. Chose to boot with CD-ROM and pressed 'Enter'. Press any key as soon as prompted (otherwise it reverts back to that awful 4 corner 'safe mode' screen. Yeuch)

6. At Windows XP set up screen, pressed 'enter' 'To set up windows now'

7. Pressed F8 after reading 'Microsoft Windows Licensing Agreement'.

8. On next screen, typed 'r' to repair Windows XP as opposed to reinstalling it.

9. After restarting I ended up back on the dreaded '4 corner safe mode' screen and a box popped up saying I would need to restart. Clicked 'Ok'.

10. Pressed 'F12' when the DELL logo appeared.

11. Chose to boot with CD-ROM and pressed 'Enter'. Press any key as soon as prompted.

12. Ended up at the recovery console. Selected '1' to correspond with C:\
Was asked for the admin password: in my case I pressed enter.

13. C:\ popped up in the next row. Entered: bootcfg /list

14. 1 result came up and I jotted it down on a piece of paper

15. On the next row I entered: bootcfg /rebuild

16. On the next line (load identifier) I entered: Microsoft Windows XP Professional

17. On the next line (OS load options) I entered: fastdetect /noexecute=optin

18. Exited.



I wrote this in a long and anal manner cos I personally went through hell trying to work this out and am soooo glad I managed to stumble upon this forum between the thousands and thousands of google searches I went through. Sorry if what I wrote is a little slow and seemingly dimwitted but it's just what I personally had to go through (based purely on what I recall) and I'm sorry if it doesn't work exactly the same way for you.

I'm extremely grateful to the rest of you who posted here, I can't thank you enough.

------------ You may or may not have to go through the process highlighted in blue

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Thanks hvw8.

Like a member above, I joined this forum for the sole reason of coming here and thanking everyone for their help.

Although this thread is over two years old, it definitely helped me and specially your step by step guide on how to accomplish this.

Thanks once again.

No probs at all gmoney. So glad I could be of help.

After having stumbled upon this miracle of a thread (regardless of how old it was), I felt it would have been just a tad wrong to simply take the helpful hints and dash off without creating an account and expressing my gratitude.

I know my steps were a bit long and anal, but sometimes the simplest things can be taken for granted when someone who is proficient with IT is outlining a solution to someone who struggles with seemingly simple computing concepts (like me :))

All the best to you.

I realize this is an old thread but i am still having the same type of issues. I ll start from the beginning so hopefully i wont leave anything out. I built a computer about 5 years ago, 3 months ago the motherboard went out. Since i sent off for a new one. I have a laptop so i was ok without my desktop. Anyway, i do business on my desktop and needed info off of one of the hard drives so i brought a comp over from a friends house, a dell intel, (by the way my system is an msi amd setup). I stuck my harddrive in there, set it up and ran it off of that computer for about a week as i waited for the new mobo. new mobo comes in, i take out my hardrive and put it back in the case, setup the new mobo and go to start windows xp pro sp3. It starts to load and then i get BSOD. thought it was hardware error so tried with the bare minimum and still same results. tried in safe mode and it booted right up. sorted thru sum things tried a few different things to try and get it to boot normal and nothing. so i make a cd with xp pro and slipstream sp3 into it. go into recovery console and try to repair windows. in the RC it seems as if everything went ok. it reboots but then same problem, so i try safe mode and now i have "setup cannot complete in safe mode". tried ctl alt del and nothing. rebooted, went into RC and tried altering the boot cfg and still nothing. so to access my info i just decided to create a new partition and make a new windows install so i can at least get into my info. which works great. windows starts right up there. is there anyway i can copy and paste info from the new install to the corrupt install? or will fixing the MBR help? im stuck and at a loss on what else to try or do. I've tried everything listed in this forum and still stuck. Someome PLEASE HELP!