My DigitalZone

Windows Safe Mode is very useful when you want to troubleshoot your PC’s problems. Your PC may misbehave for various reasons. The cause could be the software or hardware you just installed or a virus. You may encounter an almost disastrous situation where your PC refuses to boot up in a normal way. In all of these circumstances, booting into a Window safe mode will let you have a chance to fix the problem.

What is Windows Safe Mode
When you boot your computer into Windows safe mode, Windows load the minimal sets of software so that the administrative or diagnostic tasks can be done. You can choose what sets of software/drivers to load at the startup of safe mode but I recommend that you just use a default safe mode boot. It means that your network connection and display drivers, etc., won’t start. So, the screen looks very rough.

How to boot into safe mode
You may need to use a different method for some computers (e.g., Dell computers) but typically you need to F8 key to get into safe mode. When you first power up your computer, the machine’s screen is black and you will see some texts scroll up (e.g., keyboard, hard drive…). Don’t do anything yet because it is a list of hardware installed on your machine and a program on the motherboard is checking them. Right after the list of equipment, you may see “starting Windows.” At this moment, you need to start tapping the F8 key until you see the safe mode menu screen. As I said earlier, just booting into a regular safe mode is recommended.

What can I do once I’m in the safe mode?
Well, you can uninstall the software you just installed if you think it’s the cause. You can run an anti-virus software if your PC is likely to be infected. In the worst case scenario where you think you may need to reinstall Windows, you can move all of your important files to a removable disk just like I did a while back.

Toshiba Satellite A305-S6908 15.4-Inch Laptop ($679.99)

My 3-year-old laptop, Toshiba Satelie, started to malfunction. It automatically shuts down after splashing the dreadful blue screen. I thought it could be overheating because I had it on my lap and could feel the heat. After several rounds of rebooting, it still doesn’t work properly. It boots into a normal mode for about 2 min. then, it starts to reboot automatically.

When I booted into a safe mode, it works fine. So, my plan is to do a system restore. At this time, I am copying most of my data to an external HD.

The similar thing happened about a year ago. It became so unstable in a normal mode, so I did the same. Moved the files to an external HD and did a system restore. I know it’s going to be a pain becase I need to reinstall a lot of software but I don’t want to spend too much time troubleshooting this old laptop. I hope I can finish everything over the weekend.

It’s probably about time to replace this though. But I don’t want to buy a new computer with Windows Vista on it. Oh, well. Let’s see what happens after the restore.