Cannot start vista in safe mode

YouTube videos. Need further assistance? More Information. Support News. Customer Advisories. Aftyer selecting minimal safe mode in msconfig, I rebooted, the computer went through normal startup, but then rebooted. So I pressed F8 and tried Safe mode again. I then pressed F8 again and this time selected 'Repair computer',and did a mem check. However I could not get back to normal mode without deselecting 'Minimal Safe mode' in msconfig, and on startup pressing F8 and selecting last known good config'.

It is now running in normal mode. It will not change between safe and normal without going through this process. I am concerned that it has some virus or such as because I have heard of a worm that prevents safe mode and so prevents it removal.

Office Office Exchange Server. OneDrive Windows 7 and 8. Copy and Paste Between Android and Windows. Protect Windows 10 From Internet Explorer. Mozilla Fights Double Standard. Connect to a Hidden Wi-Fi Network. Change the Size of the Touch Keyboard. Reader Favorites Take Screenshot on Windows. Mount an ISO image in Windows. Boot Into Safe Mode. Where to Download Windows Legally. Find Your Lost Product Keys.

Clean Install Windows 10 the Easy Way. The Best Tech Newsletter Anywhere Join , subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. Since we launched in , our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. Lo and behold, some Dell "recovery" type software kicked in and said it was rebuilding the MD files. Then MD seemed to work fine. Also boots fine into Vista. View solution in original post.

I've got the same problem on an M running Vista HP. I've looked through many threads on this forum with similar errors, but can't find a definitive fix.

It won't even boot from a known good "Ultimate Boot" CD, which has got me out of trouble before - same error. I supect if I try to boot from a Vista or XP boot disk I'll get the same error; but I'll try that later nearly 1am here local time!! Glad to see you've got it fixed, and thank you for posting what you did.

I went ahead and marked your post as the Verified answer. You are correct that having two partitions marked as active is not right. I know you can do so using a linux fdisk when you set a particular partition as active, fdisk is supposed to clear the active flag on all other partitions.

None of the Windows Safe Boot F8 options would work. Browse Community.