urgent; Can't boot in safe mode and msconfig stops responding

I opened msconfig and after clicking on the Services tab --> hide all Micorsoft services --> disable all and then clicked on 'apply' System Configuration Stopped responding [and I could not even restart my PC]. I did so manually. I tried again this time instead of selecting 'Disable all'' I just disabled one of them (Adobe update service) to see if I could do this one at a time. but still it stopped responding and froze everything.
Having no choice I rebooted manually and then pressed the F8 key to reboot in safe mode BUT I got a boot menu asking me which HD I wanted to use to boot into and not the DOS screen giving me a choice for safe mode.
BTW my Win 7 OS HP 64bit is now booting from an SSD drive on a PCI-e card and am wondering if this has anything to do with it.
Anyhow, having done my usual monthly virus scan as well as malaware by using 3 different sources (mine and 2 online ones) just yesterday this virus/trojan/malware is probably not the cause.
Why do I want msconfig or a safe mode boot. Trying to reinstall my HP scanner software and drivers which I am having a little bit of problems with--so not related.

carwiz said:

Not knowing what was in startup originally, it's hard to say what you deleted but I'm guessing it had to do with a driver for your PCI-e SSD. If that's the drive you boot from, the startup boot is saying it's not there. What's the BIOS say for the order of boot devices? What other drives are installed?

What do you mean by "what was in startup"? What startup? I did not delete anything from the msconfig nor change anything--I never got that chance-if that's what you meant.
The original HD with the OS/boot was removed. Hence, now what shows in the BIOS for booting is the SSD drive and it is set for first. The SSD's OS is an image (or whatever it's called) recreated by the Samsung Transfer software.
When i click on F8 what I'm getting is the other 2 HDs I have, the DVD optical drive, and the SSD (last on the list in this case).
BTW I went back to msconfig and there is no problem in using it anywhere except the 'Services' tab

There should be no Service critical to starting Windows in msconfig>Startup or >Services after hiding all MS Services. I regularly uncheck all but the AV for best performance and have never had a problem. If it's larded with factory bloatware it may have wireless crapware that needs uninstall to stop blocking Win7's superior Wireless but that would not keep Win7 from starting.

I think a MS service must have inadvertently gotten included, or something else. The solution is to boot into F8 Recovery Options (or the disk) to run System Restore.

Never believe industry propaganda that you need any of the spyware which every software tries to sneak into your startup, all freeloaders on Win7's back. Only your AV, possibly sync, maybe Flash, and rarely a messenger you can't do without.

Due to a printer problem it was suggested to reinstall stuff for it with only the necessary files. The suggestion was to go to [1] msconfig and use selective startup--which I had done with no problem then [2] go to the services tab and hence lay the problem described above. And though I could have chosen the boot tab in msconfig to do a safeboot I decided, since windows was rebooting to the the safe boot from there, knowing that F8 would get me there. It is at this point that I was made aware that F8 did not get me to the safe boot menu but only to choose which drive I wanted to boot from. Hence me having described the 2 problems mentioned. I hope this makes everything more clearer. I did not mention anything else because I thought it was irrelevant to the problems described (which it is). My PC works perfectly fine on all counts. This all started with a printer/fax issue--all else was great. I would say it was just by pure coincidence that the 2 described problems showed up. And seeing that they deal with msconfig and safeboot I thought them important enough to take care of before my printer problem (which also works great as a printer and scanner but I had a fax issue--all irrelevant to here and hence not mentioned).

If you rely on scanning from the printer then you'll also need the printer in msconfig>Startup and >Services list or you'll lose the connection from the printer to the desktop. This is not needed to start with Windows if you're only printing and not using it as a scanner.

You can also scan from a printer without its full software package with Windows Scan if its available on the rightclick context menu when clicking on the Printer in Devices and Printers.

Hi gregrocker. I always like seeing you here. You've been great so often I almost feel we're friends that hang around together.
Ok to the problem at hand: Please disregard anything to do with my printer--that is why I didn't mention it at first. As mentioned all works OK. I went to msconfig only to install drivers and software in 'Clean Boot mode' and in so doing I found the problem described.
So let's assume I never said anything and this is my 1st post and I asked the question as such:
I went to msconfig just for the fun of it and reliazed that all is working fine except when I go to the 'Services' tab then msconfig has the "(Not responding) message on top of its window. And all else freezes. Why is this?
Then in trying to boot in Safe mode by clicking on F8 I was not given this option but was only shown a boot menu, a HD list for me to choose where I wanted to boot from--no choices for 'Safe Mode given. Why is this?
Finally I also noticed something new: Though the BIOS does show my SSD as being what it is and as being the first in the order if once on windows I click on the taskbar at "Safely remove hardware and..." It actually shows my SSD there as well meaning I could eject it--which of course is odd since the OS sits on it.

In addition: is this a Windows Boot menu you are seeing. If so then you'll need to select the OS to boot then immediately start tapping F8 again.

Did you give msconfig time to recover? Observe Task Manager Processes ordered by CPU and then RAM to see if there's a culprit causing it to hang. Then check the logs and other System Resources in Troubleshooting tutorial in signature pic below.

AHCI gives you ability to Safely Remove and hot plug all drives which makes racks more convenient