windows 8 - how to get safe mode?

[AndyL]

Well I'm stuck...

Windblowz 8 - not sure what's up - this pos HP laptop just failed a battery again - and at the same time now windows 8 won't let me login...

Having 2 failures - either hangs at the login screen (ie that Spinny ball hangs and she stops dead in her tracks) or get to that god awful start tile screen - mouse works but can't do anything...

F8 during boot doesn't get me safe mode... Shift f8 - same... Can't get into msconfig obviously to select reboot in safe mode. And apparently windows doesn't detect theres a problem and initiate it...

What are my options here?

Thanks in advance!

[Seth1968]

Hi Andy.

Use F11 instead of F8.

From there, get into Troubleshoot>Advanced Options> Automatic Repair.

If the Auto Repair doesn't work, then do the same but choose System Restore.

[AndyL]

Why do I read Microsoft support forums?

Lol

Ok so that gets me a black screen with a mouse pointer...

[Seth1968]

Oh damn.

Try the F11 again, but this time pull the battery and leave the laptop unplugged for a minute or two before you try F11. If you just get the black screen again, press ESC and see if you get the repair options.

If you can occasionally get to the tile screen (Metro), type in Recovery and see if you get the recovery / repair options.

Failing that, you can boot to a W8 disk to run a start up repir or system restore, but you'll need to disable Secure Boot and/or enable Legacy boot in the BIOS. Then, you may have to set the BIOS to boot from the CD first.

[AndyL]

Ok burned a disc... Got safe mode... Recovery points fails - can't complete "probably due to antivirus software - shut down antivirus and try again"?!?!?!!!!!

Oh this just keeps getting better.

[Seth1968]

What kind of disk did you burn?

Note that some of those symptoms can be caused by a problem with the hard drive. Although that doesn't usually happen in a computer that new unless the lid was slammed shut, or the laptop was dropped.

[AndyL]

HP windblowz 8 recovery disc. (Yeah I failed to burn a set when we got this pc)

Probably has seen its fair share of drops and slams knowing my women folks...

[firebane]

Originally posted by AndyL
HP windblowz 8 recovery disc. (Yeah I failed to burn a set when we got this pc)

Probably has seen its fair share of drops and slams knowing my women folks...

You'd be best off using something like UBCD and doing a hard drive test to ensure its still ok if the thing has been dropped.

The second you drop a laptop hard the hard drive is usually toast unless its a ssd.

[Seth1968]

So you're booting to that disk, and getting System Restore, NOT System Recovery, right?

If you are getting System Restore, and more than one restore point (date) doesn't complete, then there is a good possibility of a hard drive issue.

Note that System Restore has a bug in which it can say that the restore didn't complete successfully, when it actually does. You'll know if that happens as when you restart the computer, you'll get the message that System Restore completed successfully.

EDIT: Firebane posted while I was typing.

[AndyL]

Yeah system restore.

Chkdsk isn't showing any issues? No boot errors other than the battery Warning..

Just trying to do a pair of backups (already learned this the hard way) then dunno - try a system wipe/reinstall?

[Boosted131]

You need to boot windows, then go into the boot option thing, and theres a selection for safemode in there.