In this post, I’m going to show you ways to start your computer in case the safe mode does not work. This can only happen if there’s a virus problem or serious driver problem. So, lets get started!
First of all, start your computer. If it does not boot, then it should display some kind of warning message or something. In most of the cases, it says that some abc.sys driver is missing or corrupted. This might be a virus problem. If your system is Windows XP, then use your XP installation disk. Shut down your computer. If it does not shut down normally, simply pull the power cord or press and hold the button which starts your computer. Pop in the Windows XP installation disk and start your computer. Windows XP setup should start automatically. As soon as it loads the setup files, press ‘R’ on your keyboard. This should take you to Windows Recovery Console. Get the command prompt. Now, get the file that is missing on your computer from your friend’s computer or from the internet, put it on a pen drive and now, at this point, connect the pen drive to your computer. Type the volume name of your pendrive followed by ‘:’. For example, if your pen drive was named F: prior to this problem, then type F:. This should change the prompt from C:> to F:>. If it does not, try other combinations like G:, H:, D:, E: etc. Now assuming you kept the file on your pen drive directly (without making any folder) type the following command:
copy “abc.sys” “C:\Windows\System32\”
(Here replace abc.sys to the name of the driver that is missing or corrupted)
If it asks to overwrite the file, simply press ‘y’. Now restart your computer.
If everything worked well, then your computer should boot up correctly.
If your computer still does not start, then there’s another way to start it. Also, if you are not comfortable with Windows Recovery Console, then you can use the following way to start your computer.
For this, you will need Live CD of any linux distribution. There are lot of distros of linux available but from all, I would suggest Ubuntu because of its ease of use and simplicity.
For that, visit www.ubuntu.com, click on download link and follow the instructions that suite you. You can prepare Live CD on CD or USB pen drive. I would recommend you to make it on pen drive because computers can access pen drives faster than CDs.
Read the download page thoroughly before downloading. I think that your download will be around 685 MB if you are using USB as option or 699 MB if you are using CD as option.
After downloading the Live CD and after you’ve made it on USB Pen drive, connect the pen drive to your computer. If you have made Live CD on a CD, then pop in the CD and start your computer.
As soon as the BIOS screen appears, repeatedly press F1/F2/F10/DEL/ESC until the BIOS setup appears. You should see something like Boot options. You need to edit the Boot Order. Depending on your computer, and how your USB key was formatted, you should see an entry for "removable drive" or "USB media" or “CD”. Move this to the top of the list to force the computer to attempt to boot from USB/CD before booting from the hard disk. Save your settings and exit. This usually restarts your computer.
After the computer starts, do not press any key and keep the USB drive/CD connected to your computer. This usually takes some time and you should soon see main menu. In that, select ‘Live CD’. This starts the Linux operating system. Since you have connected other pen drive containing the missing/corrupted driver file, you should see the pen drive name on your linux desktop. Double-click on it and an explorer window opens. Now open your hard drive by clicking ‘Places>(HardDrive)’ where (HardDrive) is the name of your windows file system hard drive. This opens the windows hard drive in explorer. Locate Windows/System32 folder and drag and drop the file from your USB to the windows file system hard drive. Now, shut down your linux operating system and disconnect your pen drive/remove your CD after the computer shuts down completely.
Start your computer again and this time, your good operating system should work correctly. Suppose this does not work, then we will have to assume that this is a virus problem. In such a case, you will need to do all the alternative steps mentioned above but instead of copying driver file to windows hard drive, you’ll need to install an antivirus compatible to linux operating system that you are using and you will have to scan your windows hard drive with it. This time, I think it should detect the naughty virus from your windows hard drive. Remove it from your hard drive and shut down your computer. Start your computer again after removing the USB drive/CD.
I hope all your problems get solved by following the steps mentioned in Part 1 and Part 2. If still you are not able to do so or if you are stuck anywhere in between, you can freely comment. I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.
Good Luck!
