Windows 7 will not load Safe Mode

[deltatango]

Was given to sort out a Toshiba laptop with Win 7 64bit loaded but its silly owner had not activated Nortons that came with its software package, also had Malwarebytes but just the freeware version so not active.

Yes you are right tons of malwares and trojan while watching the cpu graph it looked like a picture of a saws teeth with the cpu running at about 60%.

I have hit it with Malwarebytes, Avast, CCleaner, sfc scannow check/scandisk with full checking several times and it has become a quiet system but I am unable to get it to enter Safe Mode.

It can get to the sign in stage, you click to enter and about 5 seconds later it resets to boot all over again, though I did see a message flash that there was not enough resources before re booting. Under sfc it said that some files could not be repaired.

Am I looking at a re-install but worry if I use the transfer wizard it may carry some hidden error over to the new installation.

Any ideas please....

David

[renegade600]

if you have a win7 disk, don't matter the version, you can boot to it and try a startup repair or go back to a restore point so you can try again...

on a side not, I don't call anyone silly for not having nortons activated. Only if they do :-) sorry could not resist.

[deltatango]

I have tried the start up repair reached via F8 then repair then left it running last night but it was unable to fix the problem some remark about permissions, though I will give your idea a try as it will be not"from" the hard drive.
I only meant with Nortons that its owner who has worked for large companies and has good qualifications did nothing to protect the laptop or data!!

Full boots "fine" though slowish, Safe mode no!

Thanks so far

[Digerati]

but its silly owner had not activated Nortons that came with its software package

I don't blame him and I agree with Dan. I never would activate Norton either - not when there are plenty of capable and free solutions out there - like MBAM along with MSE (on W7) and Windows Firewall. That is a great anti-malware solution.

Any reason they have not moved to W10?

[deltatango]

Slowly breaking through the barriers, have been hitting it with Tweaking.com free version which has dislodged references to Nortons 360 (which had been uninstalled) so I found a tool to fully remove all traces.
This has meant sfc scannow reported no file problems after a scan, and checkdisk seemed to have more effect with my effort to load into safe mode, which now at least "tries" to boot into it rather than giving up after about 5 seconds.

Will continue the fight, as for W10 will let those clever souls enjoy the problems while sorting out its niggles, did like the report on Znet about 10 soon getting attacked with ransomware after a couple of days of release.

Thanks for any help....

David

[deltatango]

OK I have decided to re-install, made a breakthrough to the ever faithful users data section block to find that bugs nest, windows better but in such a mess, as always lies about things says it has no problems and everything "fine" but hard drive fragmented with over 25,00 files and system well into that "moody" zone. Core may work still but all the outer layer is busted up with faulty data or settings broken links etc.

One minute a password works next time its wrong, got to that point I trust nothing, throws in the towel to offload recovery section (gets fed up and frustrated) I wanted to wipe the drive and do a fresh install but still will, bought their USB device with it on.

Now looking for some software to give a report on drives surface data (miss those DOS days when you could see it and decide for yourself) not like now "covered up" before it fails.
What I am unable to fathom is that this person has been to Uni, gained experience at several large companies and creates this monster!!

Hope this helps to warn others to have working protection software even if its free.

David...

[Digerati]

Run Error Checking or chkdsk /r or download the diagnostics from the drive maker.