cannot boot in safe mode

Hi, can anyone tell me why I might not be able to boot into safe mode? I know you hit f8 at the start up, but it goes thought its little check and then my computer restarts again and I can't get into safe mode. could this be a hardware issue or a software issue? I just reformatted 3 days ago, and reinstalled everything and still can't get there? any ideas?

 

Instead of just hitting F8 once try tapping F8.

controlmind

 

i did all that and it just keeps restarting....i was once able to get there and now no longer able to...?????

 

Try shutting down your computer. Then once you boot back up XP should notice that the computer didnt successfully bootup and should give you the safe mode screen

controlmind

 

Hi:
Start >Run [type] msconfig >OK >BOOT.INI tab >choose /SAFEBOOT Apply.
This insures you should enter Safe Mode when you restart.
Make sure you reverse this before leaving Safe Mode.

Happy trailz,

 

I did this a couple days ago on a computer at work. Though, I got distracted with another computers issues. Came back to the machine that was in safe, did what I needed to do, and rebooted, though, I totoally forgot I had the auto safemode option turned on, took a few seconds for my brain to realize that I did this. Quite the laugh at work.

 

Thanks for all the help, however, I am now stuck in a never ending loop of trying to start in safemode. I was on with dell and they think my motherboard is no good....?????? I did the msconfig>boot.ini>safeboot and now am stuck in that, I can't even do a repair or anything...

 

by the way....when it trys to start in safemode, it gives me the blue screen of death real quick, so quick that I cannot read anything, then it restarts and goes through the same thing all over again and again.....

 

Never ending loop...as in, can you boot into safe mode?

If so, if you want to stop that, you need to go back into safe mode and uncheck the checked item you checked above.

 

No, I can't even get on my desktop to do that.. It starts up with Dell logo, then goes to windows XP screen, then quickly flashes a blue screen of death, then goes back to the Dell logo and starts all over again. I also tried to run a disk diagnostics when I hit the f12 key and that wont even work. I understand there is a edit boot.ini in console but I can't find it. The only thing I found was fixboot and i don't know what that is...I never worked in console before and I don't want to screw anything up more than it already is...lol According to Dell, they think it is the motherboard, memory (which I have confirmed that it is not the memory), hard drive or processor to which they are sending me all the above on monday.. I am now running chckdsk /r in console to rule out hard drive...