Help Please - Safe Mode Boot Startup Option - Gone

Hi - I didn't see a Windows 7 forum category that seemed to apply to this....

I had the dreaded ukash virus on my Lenovo e16 laptop earlier this morning and it virtually blocked me from doing anything - including booting in safe mode. I was somehow able to restore my laptop to a version that worked, Avira then decided to recognize it and got rid of it (better late than never, I guess). I did a full scan and it seems to be gone.

However, when I interrupt the start up process now, the option to boot in safe mode is still not available. What I see is only one option - Windows 7.

After doing a little research, I determined that this option should normally only be available when running more than one OS, which I am not. I also read that if I hit F8 after I select 'Windows 7', it should present me with the standard boot/start-up options. I have tried that, in fact I have tried every plausible key on my keyboard, and it still won't work. I can still boot in safe mode if I select that option in msconfig, but that won't help much in an emergency.

This doesn't seem to be a common problem judging from the lack of searchable material.

Any help or suggestions anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

If all else fails you can try the above.

Thanks for you reply Benji.

I have done that. That is where I get the 'Windows 7' boot option rather than the standard ones (like safe mode). When I do select the 'Windows 7' option, I continue to hit F8 (because that is supposed to bring up the other options) but it just continues to boot normally.

I honestly have never seen this before.

On my ASUS motherboards F8 brings up the quick boot menu. It lets you select another device like a thumb drive for this one boot up. On the next boot if you don't do anything it just boots up normally to the hard drive. It's a nice feature except that its a pain trying to get the timing right if you're after the Windows 7 F8 boot menu. If you wait to long you miss it, too early and you're in the ASUS quick boot menu.

benjy206 said:

moondog99 said:

Thanks for you reply Benji.

I have done that. That is where I get the 'Windows 7' boot option rather than the standard ones (like safe mode). When I do select the 'Windows 7' option, I continue to hit F8 (because that is supposed to bring up the other options) but it just continues to boot normally.

I honestly have never seen this before.

Ok that is strange. So basically when you are pressing f8 it gets the boot devices instead of the advanced menu? Did you try to use the boot button instead of the f8 button?

Thanks Benji - I've used every key I've got - although I don't know which one is the boot one. Ignorance shown here, I didn't know there was a boot key.

benjy206 said:

alphanumeric said:

On my ASUS motherboards F8 brings up the quick boot menu. It lets you select another device like a thumb drive for this one boot up. On the next boot if you don't do anything it just boots up normally to the hard drive. It's a nice feature except that its a pain trying to get the timing right if you're after the Windows 7 F8 boot menu. If you wait to long you miss it, too early and you're in the ASUS quick boot menu.

Must be the problem so. That laptop has the asus motherboard also.

I don't know, my new ASUS laptop doesn't have that feature but my two desktop PC's do. The original post sounded like the situation I ran into so maybe other manufacturers have a similar feature that also uses F8? I can easily tell which screen I booted into just by looking at it, one is a BIOS screen the other is the Windows boot screen. After reading it again I'm not so sure. I wouldn't expect to see 'Windows 7' on the BIOS screen, it would list the different boot options like hard drive, DVD drive, USB thumb drive etc. Now I'm just as confused as the rest of you.