Can't start in Safe Mode...get blue screen...now laptop won't stop restarting

[ven164]

Ok...so I was on another help forum and they were helping me with a networking problem I had and he suggested I start in SAFE MODE to do a step for what we were fixing. I tried using F8 on startup but when I clicked on SAFE MODE it would start and then give me a blue screen saying I encountered an error or something to that affect and then would restart and bring me back to the same screen asking what to start up in...so I started normally and googled "cannot start Windows XP in Safe Mode" It brought me to bleepingcomputer and there it said you could try and start it up manually by going to msconfig and checking off SafeBoot and then restarting when it prompted you to. I did that and it did the same thing as before with the blue screen and restarting again...except now I can't go back to starting normally because I have safeboot still checked.....so it just continues to reboot over and over...I have it shut off right now(prob not the best thing to do but I just held down the power button)...please tell me there is a way to get my computer back on! I have a Gateway Notebook running WINDOWS XP.

[renegade600]

are you still following the advice from the other forum? if so it could be counterproductive for this forum to try to help. Following different advice from two different forums at the same time could make things worse. If you want this forum to help, please provide a link to the other so we can see what was going on from the start.

also do you have your xp cd?

[ven164]

hey....the other forum was taking too long to help me, they were saying two words and then leaving for hours on end...so I went to Gateway support and they told me a system recovery would help the situation...so I did that with the backup.....well now it's stuck on the setup...the screen when XP asks you like if you can hear the music and what's your time zone etc... It welcomed me and then said click next, I clicked and a big white box popped up over most of the setup screen...not letting me do anything except click on the ? for the help button, but it doesn't actually let you ask for help...I've restarted and it just goes right back to the white setup box now. I'm buying a new laptop this weekend...but I would still like to get on to this comp. just to see if there is anything that I need that wasn't in my last backup. Any clue as to why it's doing this?

[deltatango]

I would be in mind of checking the hard drive and software for Trojan and virus damage.
Remove the drive and connect it to a USB bridge onto another computer and run a deep scan with its antivirus, if any are found it would be well to run a second sweep at a normal level. Delete them if found (a risk if in important places but some antivirus progs can't fully deal with them). Then run scandisk on all checks including surface damage, I have had some infections make the drive arm lash about, This will take time "days!" but worth it.