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One question I get asked a lot is how do you get into safe mode. This is actually quite easy. When you boot your computer you usually see a splash screen or a screen with information about your computer. After this you usually here a beep from your computer and it then boots. If you press F8 after the splash screen and beep you will be presented with a screen that will give you a few boot options. One of them will be safe mode. You can then use the arrow keys to highlight safe mode and hit return to select it. Your computer will not boot into safe mode.
If you have trouble getting to the screen where you select your boot options you want to just hit F8 every second after you boot your computer till it appears. If you get to the windows loading screen you have went too far and will have to restart your computer to try again.
Comments (5)
Commented:
if that's not possible, a dirty way of entering safe mode is to simply pull the power while XP is loading, then restart and it will go directly to the setup screen offering the options of safer modes.
Commented:
>>a dirty way of entering safe mode is to simply pull the power while XP is loading
I tried it and it works.
Nice discovery,
HAHAHA!!!
Commented:
You should not pull the power whilst the OS is loading.
Whilst it might work, its not the way you should do it as it might damage the system files.
I've seen countless of OS's stop working when they have been rebooted or shut down in the startup process.
Commented:
To get into Windows Safe Mode, you would hit the F8 key after the bios screen, repeatedly, until you get the Windows recovery options, which includes safe mode.
As for JackofPH's comment, yes this would be a way to get into safe mode. However, this is not recommended.
Commented:
- Start
- Run
- Type "msconfig" in the dialog box
- Select the BOOT.INI tab
- Then just check the "/SAFEBOOT" and apply the settings .
- Restart the computer you will be in the safe mode.
Don't forget to uncheck the "/SAFEBOOT" to be back in the normal mode .