How to boot into Safe Mode

Safe mode is used when your system fails to start for some reason. This includes virus infections, unsuccessful or bad installation of hardware drivers or even newly installed programs that might not be compatible with the OS or your already existing programs. When booting into Safe Mode, your system is limited to running the basic system software and drivers that are necessary to run Windows.

To boot in Safe Mode follow these steps:

· Power up your pc and press the F8 key during startup and the Advance Boot Options window will appear.

· In the Advanced Boot Options screen you will be able to see the available boot options. To boot in safe mode select one of the three safe mode options (Safe Mode, Safe Mode with networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt).

· After making your selection hit enter and the system will load the basic files and drivers necessary to run windows in Safe Mode.

· Windows will boot in safe mode and you can now log on to your PC.

· Note that in safe mode you will see the word Safe Mode on the four corners of your desktop. The theme will be set to classic theme and the background will be plain black.

In Safe Mode you will be able to troubleshoot the cause of problems encountered during normal startup whether it is caused by virus infections, software installations, driver installations etc. Usually in safe mode, I run routine checks like check disk and RAM checkers.

If you suspect a last installed program or driver to be the problem, you can safely uninstall that program or driver then boot back to regular Windows in normal mode. You can also restore the state of your computer’s system to a previous point in time using System Restore.