Help! I can't get out of Safe Mode!!!

Last week my computer booted up in safe mode. I don't know why it happened and I can't get it to boot up normally. I even went into setup and chose the normal boot up mode, but it still comes back in safe mode!

It still operates normally and even goes online, but everything looks strange, and I can't get over the feeling that something is wrong! Any ideas about what is going on? Thanks for your help!

 

Hiya LCH. Are you running a firewall? Sometimes a firewall like Zone Alarm will put you into lockdown if it encounters a problem it can't handle. Sometimes this involves only allowing a "safe mode" startup.

 

This happened to me recently thanks to William's wonderful SP2.

Anyway, there are several things you can try.

The easiest way is to try Last Known Good Configuration. Everytime XP starts successfully, it saves registry and other settings. Press F8 just after post to access it.

If Last Known Configuration doesn't work, the next thing to try is Safe Mode, then try System Restore and reboot. (If you know what you are doing, you can try to find the culprit in System Devices, Add/Remove etc. (Not everything here will work as it uses just the very basic drivers.

If you can't start it using Safe Mode, the next thing to try is the Recovery Console. Only try this if you are comfortable using a Command Prompt. (you can type help and then press enter for a list of commands.

Your last hope if all this fails is Automated System Recovery (XP pro only). Boot with the CD, press F2 when prompted, and insert the ASR Diskette you hopefully created prior. This will restore XP from a backup of the local system partition.

If these steps fail, it's time to consider a format.

 

Go to start, run, msconfig.

Click on normal startup.

Apply, close, reboot.

 

Pretty severe steps, if SP2 didn't cause the problem, eh?

LCH is using Windows 98.

 

Yes, I am using windows 98, and therefore the remedies associated with XP are not available to me.

BillH, you are right, I am running Zone Alarm. That is an interesting possibility - Do you think I should turn off Zone Alarm? Any other remedies you can suggest?

By the way, I am pretty computer illiterate. I hope this doesn't seem ignorant, but what is SP2?

 

Any other remedies you can suggest?
Hi LCH Before you shut down Zone Alarm try Adrynalyne's advice about start>run>msconfig. If that doesn't work then we know there's something else wrong.
what is SP2? SP2 is an update that applies to WinXP, so it needn't concern you.