Will not boot into any of the 3 safe mode options

[chocaholic]

Last week I was looking at a friends latpop bluescreen issue. I wanted to boot into safe mode, however it would not boot into any of the 3 safe mode options, it goes thru loading the safe mode files and then reboots back into normal mode. It will boot normally and works great.

I have done the following

• The PC disk has been checked with chkdsk and had no errors.
• checked memory for errors
• the laptop had some weird software installed and additional search engine toolbars which I removed using the program uninstall feature, adwcleaner and malwarebytes which detected and removed a lot of issues. The laptop has Norton Internet Security running on it full time.
• sfc /scannnow and it did correct a number of files, but did not fix safe mode option.
• All updates had been applied
• I looked at doing a repair, whilst there were repair options, none of them where suitable to use.
• Followed your instructions here and completed a repair install (thank you for the awesome instructions!) - didn't fix the safe mode option

What next I ask myself (and now you) ... do I need to fix this problem? If the laptop has further issues the only option would be to do a total rebuild if I cannot boot into normal mode. Completing a total rebuild when he PC is fully functional seems a lot of work for a laptop that is working, however it is probably going to be a lot less painful to rebuild in a controlled working environment then when the computer has had issues.

Any other suggestions of how I could fix this problem without a total rebuild?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Last week I was looking at a friends latpop bluescreen issue. I wanted to boot into safe mode, however it would not boot into any of the 3 safe mode options, it goes thru loading the safe mode files and then reboots back into normal mode. It will boot normally and works great.

I have done the following

• The PC disk has been checked with chkdsk and had no errors.
• checked memory for errors
• the laptop had some weird software installed and additional search engine toolbars which I removed using the program uninstall feature, adwcleaner and malwarebytes which detected and removed a lot of issues. The laptop has Norton Internet Security running on it full time.
• sfc /scannnow and it did correct a number of files, but did not fix safe mode option.
• All updates had been applied
• I looked at doing a repair, whilst there were repair options, none of them where suitable to use.
• Followed your instructions here and completed a repair install (thank you for the awesome instructions!) - didn't fix the safe mode option

What next I ask myself (and now you) ... do I need to fix this problem? If the laptop has further issues the only option would be to do a total rebuild if I cannot boot into normal mode. Completing a total rebuild when he PC is fully functional seems a lot of work for a laptop that is working, however it is probably going to be a lot less painful to rebuild in a controlled working environment then when the computer has had issues.

Any other suggestions of how I could fix this problem without a total rebuild?

So it starts safe mode. When does it recvert to boot to normal mode? After logon, or.....
Does it crash in safe mode (a BSOD is on the screen for a split second)?

 

[chocaholic]

Cannot Boot into Safe Mode

When selecting safe mode, it goes through the loading files stage, then the windows safe mode login page is shown and then the screen goes black and starts windows normally. No BSOD screen.

 

[Kaktussoft]

When selecting safe mode, it goes through the loading files stage, then the windows safe mode login page is shown and then the screen goes black and starts windows normally. No BSOD screen.

So you see the logon screen with all user accounts. Does it restart after or before clicking on the username?

Actually it does reboot the computer. It could be a normal shutdown/boot but that is clearly visible... so not happening. It crashes and you see a BSOD for about 0.1 sec.

Do this How To Disable the Automatic Restart on System Failure in Windows 7 and you see the BSOD in case of BSOD.

 

[andrew129260]

You may also look into a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html
This should fix any issues, and be done rather quick as well without affecting the files and programs.
Might be the best option to, as it could fix issues that the malware that was on the system was causing.
You might also want to run full scans with malwarebyes and norton that you have on the machine. Preferably a boot scan in norton.
Also you could do this to check for system file problems. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[chocaholic]

You may also look into a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html
This should fix any issues, and be done rather quick as well without affecting the files and programs.
Might be the best option to, as it could fix issues that the malware that was on the system was causing.
You might also want to run full scans with malwarebyes and norton that you have on the machine. Preferably a boot scan in norton.
Also you could do this to check for system file problems. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Already tried these options - see first post except the Norton boot scan...I believe this option is not available in Norton anymore. Boot time protection is set to aggressive.

 

[chocaholic]

When selecting safe mode, it goes through the loading files stage, then the windows safe mode login page is shown and then the screen goes black and starts windows normally. No BSOD screen.

So you see the logon screen with all user accounts. Does it restart after or before clicking on the username?

Actually it does reboot the computer. It could be a normal shutdown/boot but that is clearly visible... so not happening. It crashes and you see a BSOD for about 0.1 sec.

Do this How To Disable the Automatic Restart on System Failure in Windows 7 and you see the BSOD in case of BSOD.

Went through this process and can confirm there is no BSOD

 

[Kaktussoft]

No BSOD??? What happens then? A normal shutdown/reboot?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Des the crash, reboot or whatever happen before or after logon?

 

[chocaholic]

Des the crash, reboot or whatever happen before or after logon?

There is no crash just comes up with the safe mode logon page and within seconds the screen goes black and it starts booting into normal mode

 

[Kaktussoft]

Des the crash, reboot or whatever happen before or after logon?

There is no crash just comes up with the safe mode logon page and within seconds the screen goes black and it starts booting into normal mode

So the problem is just BEFORE logon. A system can only start booting:

• after normal shutdown
• after crash
• after power on

Please check "event log" for problems at that time.

 

[chocaholic]

There is nothing recorded in the event logs during safe mode stage. There is an error recorded after booting into normal mode

"The previous system shutdown at <time> on <date> was unexpected." event ID 6008

To me it pointing towards a corrupt file or could it be a registry setting. I would have thought this would have been fixed when I performed the repair install.

 

[Kaktussoft]

There is nothing recorded in the event logs during safe mode stage. There is an error recorded after booting into normal mode

"The previous system shutdown at <time> on <date> was unexpected." event ID 6008

To me it pointing towards a corrupt file or could it be a registry setting. I would have thought this would have been fixed when I performed the repair install.

"The previous system shutdown at <time> on <date> was unexpected." event ID 6008... so a crash. Tell me details about this event in event log.

 

[chocaholic]

"The previous system shutdown at <time> on <date> was unexpected." event ID 6008... so a crash. Tell me details about this event in event log.[/QUOTE]

See attached screenshot of event...I hope that is what you are looking for.

 

[Kaktussoft]

"The previous system shutdown at <time> on <date> was unexpected." event ID 6008... so a crash. Tell me details about this event in event log.

See attached screenshot of event...I hope that is what you are looking for.

Looks like chinese to me

Do this: http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[chocaholic]

There is no bluescreen dump file created. The current setting for bluescreen is kernel memory dump. It is really looking like I will need to rebuild the machine from scratch.

 

[Kaktussoft]

There is no bluescreen dump file created. The current setting for bluescreen is kernel memory dump. It is really looking like I will need to rebuild the machine from scratch.

I used google and indeed no crash (most likely). I think it's a service that fails to start (for whatever reason) and is triggering shutdown. Really nothing relevant in event log?

 

[chocaholic]

Not one thing is written to the event log during the safe mode boot process.

I checked what services are started in safe mode on my laptop and there is only svchost.exe and lsass.exe Both of these executable would be used in normal mode as well which works fine. I am thinking it could be a driver file which is replaced by the proper hardware driver in normal mode. What do you think?

I am running out of time...they want their laptop back at the end of the weekend. So If I need to rebuild it then I really need to start Friday They are not comfortable not being able to boot into safe mode if there is a problem.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Not one thing is written to the event log during the safe mode boot process.

I checked what services are started in safe mode on my laptop and there is only svchost.exe and lsass.exe Both of these executable would be used in normal mode as well which works fine. I am thinking it could be a driver file which is replaced by the proper hardware driver in normal mode. What do you think?

I am running out of time...they want their laptop back at the end of the weekend. So If I need to rebuild it then I really need to start Friday They are not comfortable not being able to boot into safe mode if there is a problem.

Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot has all the services that start in safemode. There are a lot! Even EventLog is in that list so Events will be logged in eventlog and eventviewer works. Many events should be logged in eventlog during safe mode. Unless.... it crashes before eventlog service is running.

svchost.exe isn't a service. It is sort of container that runs multiple services svchost.exe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Kaktussoft]

Run in elevated command prompt:

sfc/scannow

no integrity violations?