Cannot boot in safemode

Hello julio11386 and welcome to a2k. Was your machine closed down all the way? That means no power. Before turning power on press the F8 key at top of keyboard. Hold the key down until audible signal tells you it's activated. Release and screen with menu should come up. Safe mode is the first choice on the screen. Use keyboard up arrow to highlight that choice. Press enter. Good luck.

Thank you for the welcome. I think i've only done "restart" and then F8, so i'll try a complete power down. I have a feeling it's some setting i have changed though. We shall see what is to come..

If you follow the directions on screen (your mouse is ineffective) you should reach a section that allows you to reset beyond the current date. Three days or more should be fine. There's a calendar to select from. That should put you back beyond the period you ran into trouble. I wish you well.

Unfortunately, the power down did not correct the problem. I'm not sure how long ago this problem arose, being that i rarely need go into safe mode, and i make lots of changes to my computer every day. Would that not revert many of the chagnes that i have made, if i did reset to an earlier date??

That is what you want to do. Apparently one change (at least) has caused this. You want to go beyond the change that caused it so you'll be operational again.

Does your computer boot up to Windows? If so, you could configure Windows XP so that the next restart will enter Safe Mode.

Launch the System Configuration Utility (msconfig) from the Start menu's Run dialog. Click the BOOT.INI tab and check the box titled /SAFEBOOT. Don't touch the other settings. When you reboot, XP will start in Safe Mode and will keep doing so until you uncheck that box.

First, i tried the safemode boot option in msconfig (where is that file supposed to be located, usually i can just type it in run and have the program come up, but i had to search for it. The same thing for gpedit.msc) and restarted the computer. This caused it to loop: start up> ask taht i enter user name and password> automatic reboot> repeat. This happened until i hit F8 and reverted to a previous configuration, as was suggested. This caused the computer to actually boot up in safe mode. When i ran a scan with Win Doctor, and then CCleaner, none of the problems were fixed. Square one. Any other thoughts???

Looks like I'm late to this party - sorry 'bout that. I have a few thoughts I haven't seen mentioned here yet (if they're here and I missed 'em, or if you've already tried 'em without success, sorry 'bout that, too ).

Have you looked through your Event Viewer log? It captures most error reports for later review/analysis. Start> Run> type, without the quotes, "eventvwr.msc", and click "OK" or hit <Enter> to open Event Viewer. Double click on any item flagged red or yellow and has a time stamp that coincides with the startup errors.

You could try turning off the auto restart under System Properties> Advanced> Startup and Recovery> Settings> System Failure. This might stop the auto-restart (manual restart required instead) and leave the error message on the screen. Sometimes this error message varies from what is recorded in Event Viewer and gives additional clues.

Dunno if this'll do you any good, and to do it you'll need an actual Windows XP install disk (Home or Pro, yours or borrowed, doesn't matter, but a vendor's "Restore Disk" or, worse yet, a vendor's dedicated "Restore Partition" on your machine's hard drive won't work without a helluva buncha twiddling), it could be worth a try to have a go at the XP System File Checker. More info at Microsoft: Description of the Windows File Protection Feature.

In brief, go to Start>Run, type, without the quotes, "sfc /scannow". Note the space between "sfc" and the forward slash (/) in "/scannow" and the 2 "n"s in "/scannow". Click "OK" or hit <Enter>. Be ready to insert your install disk when prompted. If and when the "repair" succeeds, you'll be prompted to reboot. Do so, letting the machine attempt to boot normally, and see what happens.

If that doesn't help, and you do have a legitimate Windows XP install disk for your version of Windows, you might wanna try XP Recovery Console.

That's about all I can think of right now. Good luck.

I have corrected the boot problem, and the last two sentences in my previous post were actually referring to another problem i am having, where i cannot correct some activeX, etc. problems. The last two paragraphs of your post may be able to help with that particular issue. I'll study up a bit on the Xp system file checker and the WFP Feature.

Will either of those steal information from my computer (take a log of my installed programs, validate the authenticity of the programs, evil things of that nature) and send it to microsoft?

No.