son broken his new computer!

BARGAINHUNTER!

Thank you, ill give pressing F8 another go tonight and see what happens!

donny-gal

If a Medion it can be PF11 rather than PF8. DG

spakkker

As soon as pc is turned on just keep tapping f8 -about once a second should do-but keep on tapping it.

Freddie_Snowbits

One solution is to remove the chair from the desk, pack the PC back into its box and send for a refund.

No seriously, press F8 and restore to yesterday or last week.

macman

Keep tapping F8 about once a second after boot up-don't hold the key down.

Toxteth_OGrady

If you can't get into safe mode, download and create a Hiren's Boot CD on another computer. Use that to boot your PC with the problem and select the Windows XP PE menu option. Select System Restore to a point before your son changed the settings.

:cool:

TOG

JimmyTheWig

Am not using XP here, but when I did this I worked out the sequence of keypresses to change the resolution on a working machine then followed the same sequence "blind" on the machine with the problem.
Is this something you would be confident doing, OP? If not, anyone on XP want to try it for the OP?

P.S. Am loving the username and location, Toxteth O'Grady!

TwistedPsycho

BIOS is sometimes accessed using the DELETE key instead of F8

ddoris

"BIOS is sometimes accessed using the DELETE key instead of F8 "

Bios is never accessed by f8. Don't want to enter bios. Read thread.

collis

I've just been reading the details here and think the reason that you cannot get the F8 key to work may be becuase the Function "F" keys are not set as a primary key on the keyboard of the Computer.
You may see an "F-lock" button that needs to be pressed first.

Alternately, anotherway you can sometimes get windows to offer safe mode is to switch on as usuall and as the windows logo appears wait 1 second then power off the PC/Reboot it.
This can sometimes trigger a failed start and allow the system to enter safe mode - I would not recomend doing this too often as it can cause other errors.

Does the PC have a wireless keyboard?
If it does it may not be detected by the bios as a useable keyboard untill windows has started, to test, press and hold any key on the keyboard and start the system, you should get a stuck key error if it will detect it, if not then get a VERY cheep ps2/usb keyboard and use this to get into safe mode etc. Also useful then for keeping as a spare for when batteries die.

HTH