XP Home only boots in Safe Mode!

bigdunc · 2 Mar 2006 at 21:11

As title. I have a mate whose Pc which is running XP Home which will only boot up in Safe Mode. If you try to start up normally it just hangs at the XP loading screen. The only other thing that happens is there seems to be the slighest flicker of a blue screen but then goes back to the XP Loading screen.

Any ideas how I can correct the problem?

Cheers

MNuTz · 2 Mar 2006 at 21:19

i had this, had to reinstall!

GordyR · 2 Mar 2006 at 22:41

Safe Mode essentially loads windows without loading all the drivers for your hardware. So the fact that it boots fine in Safe mode implies that the issue is driver related.

Simplest answer is to run a system restore in safe mode. Go back to a date when it booted properly.

Le Samourai · 3 Mar 2006 at 00:10

Similar thing happened with a friend's pc.

One drunken-fuelled night we tried to update ATI drivers from Omega versions and got it all mixed up a bit using Driver Cleaner!

Had forgot the Omega's were installed!

Anyway... in safe mode I (sober) uninstalled everything to do with the graphics card (ATI and Omega) and it then booted back into Windows as normal.

Morale of the story...avoid Cider and Beer mixes - stick to water!!

System Restore, unfortunately, didn't help my friend's PC out.

If that doesn't work, try uninstalling drivers one by one from safe mode... attack graphics drivers first - try and get the OS back to basics.