18 Jan, 2004
Miscellaneous
Share

Add Safe Mode to Windows Boot Menu

When in trou­ble on Win­dows (not a rar­ity?) you need to boot into the "Safe Mode", where you have to boot the machine, then pounce on the F8 key to get to the hid­den menu etc etc. Here's how to sim­ply add the Safe Mode to the Win­dows boot menu so you can eas­ily select it while start­ing your machine.

When in trou­ble on Win­dows (not a rar­ity?) you need to boot into the "Safe Mode", where you have to boot the machine, then pounce on the F8 key to get to the hid­den menu etc etc. Here's how to sim­ply add the Safe Mode to the Win­dows boot menu so you can eas­ily select it while start­ing your machine.

Some sim­ple steps:

  1. Right-click My Com­puter, and choose Prop­er­ties (or press Win­dows Key & Break together).
  2. On the Advanced tab, click the Set­tings but­ton, which brings up the Startup and Recov­ery window.
  3. Click the Edit but­ton, which will open the boot.ini file in Notepad.
  4. Look under the [Oper­at­ing Sys­tems] for your default OS. Copy the entire line, and paste it on the line below.
  5. Change the descrip­tion in the quo­ta­tions to say "Safe Mode" or what­ever descrip­tion you want. Then add the fol­low­ing to the end of the line you just copied: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
  6. If you want net­work­ing sup­port, then change "min­i­mal" to "net­work" with­out the quotes.

That's it. When you reboot you'll see the Safe Mode listed under your boot menu. Just FYI, here is what my boot.ini file looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS=
"Safe Mode" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

Note that the stuff after the "=" sign in the above exam­ple is on the next line, but in the boot.ini, it should be on the same line. Be care­ful while edit­ing your boot.ini.

TOPICS

19 comments
Submit yours
  1. MJ says: Apr 30, 20043:32 am

    If one neglected to selected "net­work" when set­ting up safe mode, could it affect the login?

    I did this to try to repair an infected com­puter and now can­not get past the login screen. Any suggestions?

  2. seven says: Aug 30, 20046:31 pm

    in inter­net

  3. sam austin says: Sep 28, 20043:34 pm

    i tried that boot.ini to start in safe mode. what an hor­ri­ble expe­ri­ence. i can't get past through select­ing the oper­at­ing sys­tem and safe mode; it's loop­ing con­tin­u­ously. can any­one help me out? i didn't even back-up my hd.

    Thanks

  4. sniptools says: Sep 29, 20043:52 pm

    Sam, don't worry.

    Did you copy the boot.ini exactly as men­tioned in the above arti­cle? If so, the time­out spec­i­fied is 5 sec­onds, so you may need to act quickly: when the OS boots, don't you get asked for the options? Press the F8 key.

    When you see SAFE MODE, just select the other option and start nor­mally, and remove the SAFE MODE line from your boot.ini. It's nec­es­sary only if you need to boot into safe mode often.

    Shashank

  5. C G Hakes says: Sep 30, 20048:53 pm

    Thanks, very help­ful; but I think you should add a rider that no way will this work with a Gate­way USB key­board, and pre­sum­ably any other USB key­board, because one can't use the keys . O.K. with a PS2. Per­haps that is why I can never get into Safe Mode. Will have to obtain a PS2 key­board, or maybe MS can be per­suaded that they should update their OS to allow mod­ern tech­nol­ogy to be used.
    Geoplay

  6. mac53 says: Oct 27, 20045:25 am

    I have a ques­tion not asso­ci­ated with the "Safe Mode" topic you have listed here, but it's an issue that has been plagu­ing me for a while. Back when I was run­ning Win­dows 98se I could access MS DOS sub-system sim­ply by hold­ing two keys upon reboot­ing. I,like many oth­ers of you folks, I am now run­ning Win­dows XP, mine is the Home Ver­sion. The the MS DOS that I know how to access is through this OS is the GUI com­mand prompt. I have DOS appli­ca­tions that I would like to run on my com­puter, but does not func­tion prop­erly as long as win­dows is run­ning.
    I tried the xp start-up disc, but there is no way I know of to change Drive com­mands. I've the cd & chdir com­mands and both don't work. Does any­one know how to access the MS DOS sub-system with Win­dows xp on their com­puter? I'd sure appre­ci­ate some help.

    Thank you ;)

  7. pepo says: Dec 08, 20046:01 am

    i just want u ask 4 some help i have xp pro sp2 and i can't start my comp. in safe mode. i press f8 i have the options and when i press start in safe mode my comp restarts and i have the options again .every time i press start in safe mode it restarts , if i press start in nor­mal mode it works.

  8. pakalolo says: Jan 12, 20057:17 am

    Win98SE has no file named boot.ini

    :^)

  9. poorak says: Feb 04, 20056:35 pm

    i want to know that if i can start win­dows installer dur­ing safe mode in XP.Another thing which i wanted to know that can i get my 800×600 set­ting dur­ing the safe mode .If this is pos­si­ble then i do want to know that– is there any diag­nos­tic util­ity other than MSCONFIG (as i hav to reboot sev­eral times to find the real error)?

  10. UFO says: Feb 12, 20052:01 am

    Does this work with Win98SE? When I right-click "My Com­puter" and "Prop­er­ties," there is no "Advanced" tab — only Gen­eral, Device Man­ager, Hard­ware Pro­files, and Performance.

    ?

  11. e says: May 13, 200511:15 am

    mac53: Yes you can, goto http://www.bootdisks.com and down­load the Windows98SE boot disk, install it on a floppy disk, restart com­puter w/ floppy inside, select "Start Win­dows w/ CD Sup­port" Voila!

  12. swifty says: Jun 17, 200511:50 am

    it worked great, but I can­not select Safe Mode using my usb key­board. Does any­body know how to make usb key­boards to select? thanks!!!

  13. walid hunoon says: Jan 02, 20065:13 am

    I have NEC lap­top type F M500c,when I go to the bios,I found that IDE sec­on­dery is Disable,and ther is not way to change to Enable statue,that mean I could not boot from CD-room,can you help me please

  14. walid hunoon says: Jan 02, 20065:21 am

    how can chang the statue of the IDE sec­on­dery in NEC lap­top Bios from Dis­able to Enable

  15. Barbara says: Sep 28, 200611:23 am

    I have a Gate­way run­ning Win­dows 98SE. It will not come up beyond the Gate­way screen. I have data that needs to be res­cued in some way. Any suggestions?

    Thank you.

  16. chrissy says: May 04, 20072:17 am

    Hi I also trid this safe mode in boot.ini but ba't use the up/down arrow to get into the safe-mode option/ Here is my file:
    timeout=30
    default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
    [oper­at­ing sys­tems]
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Win­dows XP Home Edi­tion" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
    multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Safe Mode" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect/safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

  17. Al says: Jul 29, 20072:37 pm

    I have a "Stop: c0000135" and "win­srv was not found" , which is described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885523; with one excep­tion, after F8 and enter­ing safemode I see a page full of system32 dri­vers, and then it reboots and flashes the same error " STOP: c0000135 {unable to locate com­po­nents} This appli­ca­tion has failed to start because win­srv was not found. Re-installing the appli­ca­tion may fix this prob­lem." and then the same reboot cycle and never allow­ing me into safemode to repair the comp. This is a friends comp which was her late hub­bys comp, which I was updat­ing for her to use and set it for auto­matic microsoft updates for her, and am sorry now I allowed it to start updat­ing xp sp2, which error'd out half way through. She has no xp cd or recov­ery cd. Can you help me at least some­how get into safemode? Thank you for any assistance.

  18. Solomon says: Oct 06, 200712:39 am

    My com­puter just goes on loop after i rebooted in safe mode & tried
    to restart on nor­mal mode i really would like some­one help me on this please.

    Thank you.

  19. Nona Bridges says: Aug 20, 20107:11 pm

    btw I found a good Win­dows Boot CD, works nicely and is easy to use

Submit comment

© 2010 —Sniptools. All Rights Reserved.