Reboot in Safe Mode and continue XP machine

[Brink]

I'm hesitant to post this because bugs that I find seem to be unique to me. LOL Anyway, I have an XP machine (should be upgraded I know) but when I use "Reboot in Safe Mode and continue" the machine gets stuck in safe mode. MSconfig says the machine is set to boot in normal startup. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Option value is set to 2. Changing it to 0 makes no difference as after reboot reinspection shows that the value set to 2 again.

In the registry I can see that HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce there is an entry for UVK to restore normal boot. But also later in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce it sets it right back to safemode boot again.

Deleting the RunOnce entries from the registry and Setting SafeBoot\Option to 0 does not restore normal boot. After reboot we are still in safe mode and SafeBoot\Option is set back to 2 again. I cant seem to find a way to restore proper normal boot. BTW msconfig is set to normal boot, Already tried that.

Any ideas?
What happens behind the scenes when a user selects "Reboot in Safe Mode and continue"?

[Fred]

Brink, UVK selects the boot mode like this:
On Windows Vista and newer: by running bcdedit.exe
On XP: by changing %SystemDrive%\boot.ini. It's a hidden file. bcdedit.exe does not exist on xp.

To restore the normal boot:
A RunOnce entry is created: *RestoreNormalBoot. Runs the following command:

Code: Select all

"%ProgramFiles%\UVK - Ultra Virus Killer\RebootExec.exe" -RestoreBoot

You can try running that command yourself or edit boot.ini this way:

run attrib -h -s %SystemDrive%\boot.ini
Edit boot.ini, removing any of the following strings from the end of the lines:

Code: Select all

 /safeboot:network /sos /bootlog /noguiboot
 /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog /noguiboot

run attrib +h +s %SystemDrive%\boot.ini

Ad you should be good to go. Please tell if you found those strings in boot.ini after running the RebootExec command.

[Fred]

Brink, I was wondering. Maybe your boot.ini isn't in the same partition where XP is installed. Could you please check that out? Thanks.

[Brink]

Good ole boot.ini wow. I totally forgot about that one.
That was my problem.

I remember boot.ini We used to edit it all the time for multiboot situations. BCDedit has gotten me spoiled. LOL

In my case the windows is on the same drive and partition with boot.ini. I can see your concern about that though. There have been cases in the past with multiple OS installations on multiple drives where the OS is on a different drive/partition. If I run into that I'll test it for you.

Thanks for the help Fred.

[Fred]

You're welcome, Brink. You didn't say if the rebootexec command worked.

[Brink]

I couldn't tell because I had already edited the registry and removed the entry. I can re-test if you like?

[Fred]

That's OK, Brink. I'll test it out myself before the new update I'm working on. Thanks anyway.

[Xander]

If the machine is booting, you should be able to find the same options in the MSconfig. If it's stuck in Safe Mode, that's the first place I go.

[Brink]

Apparently msconfig does not see the contents of boot.ini . In msconfig, "normal boot" was selected and still it was stuck. Fred was correct though in pointing me to the boot.ini file. I have used msconfig on occasion to diagnose errors, but I've always considered it to be a sort of "user level" diagnostic tool as opposed to a more robust "tech's tool" like regedit, notepad, UVK and the sysinternals suite. I just have not done anything with XP for a couple years now and I'm getting rusty with having missed checking the boot.ini file. In my mind I associate boot.ini with multiboot and actually didn't even know that you could force a safeboot with it. Oh well we learn all the time. Unfortunately, what I learn about XP is quickly becoming a waste of brain cells. Sometimes it seems like my brain is full, and in order to learn more, stuff gets deleted to make room for the new. LOL

[Xander]

Given that MSconfig is the recommended method of editing the Boot.ini file, I'd have been curious to see if it would correct it by changing the setting, Applying it, and then setting it to the normal one. I'd be very surprised if that wouldn't have worked.

[Brink]

I did that too. I set it to selective boot then rebooted. Then set it back to normal boot and rebooted. It stayed in safe mode. I couldn't tell you what the boot.ini looked like each step of the way because when Fred pointed that out I manually edited it and my problem was solved.