Computer has problems starting, please help

Raguvian

Solid State Member
Messages
16
My computer, which is a few years old, has problems when it starts.
When I turn it on, it keeps telling me that it's in Safe Mode, and that I can change the settings in the BIOS. I've looked in the BIOS and I can't tell how to get it out of safe mode.

The other problem, which is much more aggravating, is that after it has done all its system checks, it takes about 5-6 minutes before the operating system (XP) will load. After it loads and takes me to the welcome screen, everything works perfectly fine. However, I want to get it out of safe mode and also figure out why it pauses for so long before XP starts up.

System specs:
Abit AN8-SLI motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
ATi X850XT
Hitachi (I think) 80GB hard drive
Kingston 1 GB RAM

thanks!
 
go to start -> run -> type "msconfig" (without quotes of course) then when that comes up click the "boot.ini" tab. Make sure that "/SAFEBOOT" isn't checked. Then hit "OK" and it might prompt you with a restart and proceed with that. Let us know if it's still booting into safe mode after that.
 
go to start -> run -> type "msconfig" (without quotes of course) then when that comes up click the "boot.ini" tab. Make sure that "/SAFEBOOT" isn't checked. Then hit "OK" and it might prompt you with a restart and proceed with that. Let us know if it's still booting into safe mode after that.

Thanks for the reply. I made a mistake, the system isn't running in safe mode, but in Fail-Safe State, and every time I turn on the computer, it asks me to recheck the BIOS CMOS, but in the BIOS, I don't know what to do to get it out of the Fail-Safe state.


As for the OS loading very, very slowly, if I restart the computer during the long pause it takes to load up the OS, it will say that Windows was restarted unexpectedly and will give me an option to start Windows normally. If I select that, the operating system loads up very quickly. However, if I boot it up at first, it will take a very, very long time to load up.
 
Have you checked your BIOS to make sure that you are booting to the right device FIRST? (i.e. your hdd or hdd partition with windows on it) Because if you have say your floppy first, then your cdrom, then a different hd, then your boot hd then in theory your system has to check those before your system boots....I'm not sure how to exit fail-safe mode. What BIOS manufacturer do you have? A quick google look should help solve that...
 
Go into the BIOS and select DEFAULT or OPTIMAL settings.

I did this, and it's still running in fail-safe state. However, the operating system loads up much faster than before. It comes up normally now, without pausing for a couple of minutes. Thanks for the advice.

dude_56013, my BIOS is a Phoenix - AwardBIOS V6.00PC. I looked online and there were a few people who said that their systems were stuck in the Fail-safe state also, and the advice they got was to go to the BIOS and load the optimal settings. However, it still doesn't work for me. At least the operating system loads up normally now.
 
Try and use the Last Known Good Configuration setting. When your computer boots, press and hold the F8 key to dispaly the advanced configerations setting menu. Then select the Last Known Good Configeration setting. This setting uses the settings that the computer last started successfully and normally. Try it. More details are on my website.
 
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