Windows XP Getting It Not To Boot In Safe Mode

Tojo_Ralph

Here's the deal.

When I got home tonight I decided to Defrag my works laptop so did the msconfig and booted it into safe mode.

The latop has McAfee SafeBoot Encryption which recognises my user name and password and XP begins to load.

I then get the "Log On To Windows" screen where it does not recognise my user name and password combo?

Now I am 99.5% sure I know my user ID and password.

This leaves me unable to complete booting in safe mode and unable to boot in normal mode..... So unable to boot full stop.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Needless to say I am not going to tinker too much as I can get our IT to look at it tomorrow, but that'll mean going in on a rare day off .

Thanks.

ap0llo_*

Backup the data using an external enclosure and then do a repair install. Don't think theres any other way

GunJack

why did you want to boot it in safe mode to defrag it ?? Or is the facility disabled under your works normal user account ??

Tojo_Ralph

GunJack wrote: »

why did you want to boot it in safe mode to defrag it ?? Or is the facility disabled under your works normal user account ??

Rightly or wrongly I have always defragged computers in safe mode.

GunJack

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

Rightly or wrongly I have always defragged computers in safe mode.

There is absolutely no need to defrag in safe mode, unless your works have set it up to only be available in safe mode due to policy.

Can you not just power it down and restart normally ??

closed

no need to defrag at all, it rarely makes any difference. Safe mode defrag is something from W95/98 days (when it used to constantly restart after a disk write), no longer necessary

Tojo_Ralph

Well I am glad we cleared up what I do and do not need to do the next time I defrag, what I now need to do is figure out whether I can fix the problem or if i have an unplanned trip to work tomorrow?

closed

is numlock on?

check what you are typing in the password field is what you expect (by typing it into the user field where it is visible).

Is this machine on a domain?

robmar0se

closed wrote: »

no need to defrag at all, it rarely makes any difference.

I am intrigued why you say this. What assumptions are you making. Implementing yr sticky? OS? techies or average joe? commercial or home? domain or standalone?

In my experience with 100's of PC's passing through the door, this is one of the no brainers - that is if one doesn't follow your gospel as outlined in yr sticky. Not everyone would want to do that.

Tojo_Ralph

closed wrote: »

Is this machine on a domain?

Yes ..... And with corporate policy/software installed the way it is the upshot of it all is that after 2hrs our IT department threw their hands in the air and offered only one option, a complete remap.

Apparently I am not the only one to fall foul of the safe mode issue, which is why I am surprised there was not a known fix.

Thus that's 3 weeks of work up the swanny and a hard lesson learned.

espresso

Tojo_Ralph wrote: »

Thus that's 3 weeks of work up the swanny and a hard lesson learned.

The real lesson to be learned here is that you should back up your work regularly because a hard disk can fail at any time.

You should forget about defragging and sort out a regular backup strategy, as this is a much higher priority. Portable USB hard drives and flash drives are so cheap.