Endless boot to Crashing Safe Mode!!!!!

drdeathnl3drdeathnl3
edited August 2007 in Hardware
I am a technician myself and I can't quite figure this one out!

Long story short:

I was on with Hughesnet level 3 tech (all others are morons) and he had me go to msconfig>boot.ini tab and enable:

/safeboot
with network

However, the thing I noticed earlier in the day which I should have mentioned was that when I try to boot to Safemode with network settings, the system never gets all the way into safemode. It just "hangs", not freezes. It gets past the scrolling list of files, displays the SAFE MODE in all 4 corners, asks me for my login/password, but never gets to the "You are in safe mode" "Yes/No" screen. I can still move the mouse around, etc, but nothing happens. I have tried everything I can think of.

So the obvious thing to do would be to go back to Normal mode and uncheck safeboot and network....however, no matter what selection I try after hitting F8, even "Last known working config", it always boots to safemode with networking (even if I say: boot to regular safe mode).

Here's the thing that i think is doing it: Digitalpersona (this is the software I use for my office fingerprint scanner).

The one time I ran Safemode without network config, it gave me the traditional old login/pass screen. However, normally (and when booting to safemode with network) it shows me the "digitalpersona" login/pass screen. The one time it went to safemode only (before he told me to check off the network setting in msconfig), safemode worked fine.

So...here's the question:
How do I 1. edit boot.ini (registry) from dos; or 2. Force it out of this?

Any thoughts would be enormously helpful as I need this laptop for work...it's all I have ;-)

I am running a Dell Inspiron e1505, and no, for some reason, the recovery partition is not working.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2007
    So the problem is that because you put the /safemode command in your boot.ini you'll be booting into safemode regardless of what you do with F8, why he told you to do that is beyond me.

    You only have a few options.
    1) Get your hands on a windows disk, boot into recovery mode and fix your boot. Then if it lets you boot into windows see about uninstalling that scanning software. If it doesn't then it gets tricky. You could go back in through recovery console and try manually deleting the scanning software so that it doesn't load, the hope being that it just boots your windows normally. The problem is that if it's hooked into your windows login deleting files may cripple it entirely.

    2) reboot with a windows cd and do a repair install. This may or may not work, it should fix things back to normal without loosing anything. The problem is that - you don't loose any software either. So it may just see that scanning software running and leave it there which won't put you any further ahead.

    3) Backup your data and do a clean install.
  • drdeathnl3drdeathnl3
    edited August 2007
    kryyst wrote:
    So the problem is that because you put the /safemode command in your boot.ini you'll be booting into safemode regardless of what you do with F8, why he told you to do that is beyond me.

    You only have a few options.
    1) Get your hands on a windows disk, boot into recovery mode and fix your boot. Then if it lets you boot into windows see about uninstalling that scanning software. If it doesn't then it gets tricky. You could go back in through recovery console and try manually deleting the scanning software so that it doesn't load, the hope being that it just boots your windows normally. The problem is that if it's hooked into your windows login deleting files may cripple it entirely.

    2) reboot with a windows cd and do a repair install. This may or may not work, it should fix things back to normal without loosing anything. The problem is that - you don't loose any software either. So it may just see that scanning software running and leave it there which won't put you any further ahead.

    3) Backup your data and do a clean install.

    Unfortunately, none of this is going to work. I don't know why it took me so long to realize, but since WinMagic Disk Encryptor is installed on this harddrive, booting from ANY CD doesn't seem to work as it doesn't see the OS Partition unless WinMagic is run first (it runs immediately after BIOS).

    I have tried every boot disk immaginable wondering why the C drive never showed up...until it hit me that the encryption is working GREAT!!!!! it's keeping me out of my own computer!

    HELP!!!!!!!
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2007
    Well here's the thing. Your screwed. You need to get to a console on that machine to fix it. So unless you luck out and get it to work in safe mode your pretty much done as far as I can tell and from what I've read there is no real way to get around winmagic's encryption.

    Try booting up with F8 and choose safe mode w/command prompt and then pray. If you can get there then you may be able to start on the problem. If not your done.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    booting from ANY CD doesn't seem to work as it doesn't see the OS Partition unless WinMagic
    Hey, I know what you're talking about! I've got Pointsec on my work laptop's hard drive. It's a fantastic security system, but it's death for many other HDD manipulations!
Sign In or Register to comment.