How can I get into Safe mode on Windows 10?


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At one point I had my computer setup to dual boot windows 10 with the other os being the same one except it would boot into safe mode.  I set the menu timeout to 2 seconds.  There technically should be a way to bring up the recovery screen, probably has been discussed already.  Thing is, none of the options worked on my old computer.

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12 hours ago, xendrome said:

Make a Windows 10 bootable USB and boot up with it and you can use the recovery tools. Easy.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

this is the official method from MS also.

1 hour ago, margrave said:

Windows 10 basically has no safe mode. If it doesn't boot, you get to wipe, and reload everything from backup.

 

Bad design from Microsoft.

it does have recovery mode, the silly idea was to set it to only be available by holding down shift and restarting the PC, or via recovery usb.

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1 hour ago, margrave said:

Windows 10 basically has no safe mode. If it doesn't boot, you get to wipe, and reload everything from backup.

 

Bad design from Microsoft.

False, you just boot up and use the recovery console.

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14 minutes ago, margrave said:

recovery console != safe mode

Correct, you can do everything from the recovery console that you can do from Safe Mode. Command prompt is enabled and you can run powershell from it. So just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean it isn't equal.

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4 minutes ago, xendrome said:

Correct, you can do everything from the recovery console that you can do from Safe Mode. Command prompt is enabled and you can run powershell from it. So just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean it isn't equal.

Ah Microsoft. Making new versions of Windows LESS user friendly. Brilliant design decision.

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On 07/11/2016 at 6:35 PM, warwagon said:

Working on a clean install of Windows 10 on a laptop. Due to the display driver Windows found, the computer now boots to a black screen. Now in all of Microsofts wisdom they removed the ability to press F8 and access the Safe mode menu.

 

1) I can't access windows and just get a black screen, so all the methods of accessing safe mode from inside Windows are a no go.

2) I booted off a USB Windows installer but I don't get the option to reboot to the advanced startup menu

3) I booted off a USB rescue USB which I made from windows but I don't get the option to reboot to the advanced startup menu

4) No restore points because it's a clean install.

 

The only method I can think of is holding the power button down 3 times while the computer is starting up and risk possibly of corrupting the ###### out the drive and causing some bad sectors in the process, is this my only option?

Heads up, this is a hack, but here goes...

 

  1. Create a Windows PE USB or DVD, boot into it and you'll get a CMD window with access to the C: drive (though might be mounted as D:, check diskpart).
  2. Once you've established a drive letter, plug in a USB with graphics driver INF files
  3. From the USB drive (poke around D:, E:, F:, you get the idea!), add the drivers to your Windows image on C: with DISM. Something like: dism /image:C: /add-drivers /Driver:F:\Drivers\ /Recurse
    this will add any driver INFs found in a USB F: to an offline Windows install on C:

I've only ever done this with LAN and USB drivers (my own fault), but it may just work!

 

More on DISM for adding drivers here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Hh825070.aspx

 

How to create a Windows PE drive under here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/winpe-intro

 

If nothing else, Windows PE might give you a platform to do some bootloader magic to force it into safe mode (Can't remember if you can do this with BCDEDIT?).

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51 minutes ago, PsYcHoKiLLa said:

Method number 6 from here would be best from boot:

 

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

 

I agree though, it's ridiculous to get rid of the tried and tested method, for what reason?!

 

That was the only way I was able to trigger the recovery mode which finally gave me the option to reboot into the safe mode option screen. After which a hard drive which passed a sector check 1 hour ago now has 37 bad sectors in the first 10% of the drive. Only decided to recheck after a clone failed to say it couldn't read from a sector. So I don't know if killing power to the drive as it was starting up caused it or if it just happened to bad as I was working on it.

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2 hours ago, warwagon said:

That was the only way I was able to trigger the recovery mode which finally gave me the option to reboot into the safe mode option screen. After which a hard drive which passed a sector check 1 hour ago now has 37 bad sectors in the first 10% of the drive. Only decided to recheck after a clone failed to say it couldn't read from a sector. So I don't know if killing power to the drive as it was starting up caused it or if it just happened to bad as I was working on it.

ouch 37 bad sectors, dead HDD walking! 

 

TBH mate that sounds like a firmware glitch of the failing drive, forcibly powering it on and off wouldn't do that level of damage, as my old lecturer used to say as he pulled out the psu cable to students PCs typing when they should be listening, "its only DOS with fancy pants on!" :p 

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