Feature

Safe Mode

It sounds good, but it actually portends problems.

When job hunting or managing your business, your first responsibility is to yourself, but keep your computer running well too. Here's the first in a series of three articles on keeping your computer healthy -- so it's always ready when you need it!

A Windows 98 or XP computer boots up in Safe Mode when something is wrong. Because of a problem, the system is not able to load everything, so it boots with the minimum amount of devices and drivers. Usually, the keyboard and maybe the mouse will function, but not much else. You'll find you have no access to the CD-ROM, no sound, no modem, no Zip disk, and no printer, all because there is a problem with one of these devices.

The grey or blue Safe Mode screen has the word SAFE in all four corners. Its menu prompts you to choose a Normal start-up, go back to DOS, or to choose Safe Mode and let it load all devices, one at a time, so you can see which one fails.

The task is then to step through the boot process, note where it fails, and try to remedy the problem.

Three steps to safety…

1. From the Safe Mode menu, if you choose "Normal" the system will attempt to boot but likely fail again.

2. Choose "Step-by-Step" so you can answer "Yes" to load each device and each driver. That's one way to find out which device is failing to load.

3. Choose "Command Prompt Only" if you need to get to the DOS prompt (C:). In a panic, this will allow you to access files on the hard disk, and perhaps quickly copy them off to floppy disks for safety.

Once you get Windows to load again, you can search for conflicts by going to Start / Settings / Control Panel. Choose System and click on Device Manager. As you scroll down the list of devices, you will see an exclamation mark inside of a yellow triangle for any device that is not working correctly.

Why things go wrong

In our experience, the No. 1 problem that causes a computer to boot in Safe Mode is bad drivers. (Drivers are software programs that load when the computer boots up.) They are part of every device, printer, CD-ROM, games, mouse, etc. Sometimes drivers conflict with each other or become corrupt. That's when it is time to delete and reload the offending program, or obtain an updated driver from the manufacturer.

Tip: with a Windows XP computer, you can often avoid a problem by creating a Restore Point before loading any new programs or deleting old files. That way, if something goes wrong, you just restore your computer to an earlier time. More about this topic next week...