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Richard Jones

This has caused me major problems with the latest Windows 10 upgrade.
As the upgrade installer progressed through but gave blue screen of death at the end. Likely caused by a Driver issue.
In the past I would have gone into safe mode to start diagnostics.
Now I get the blue screen error every time I try to boot windows.

Without being able to start Windows, I cannot use option 1 to get into Safe Mode using msconfig.
I can’t use option 2, as I cant start windows, to select Shift+Restart.
Because the upgrade was done using the automatic windows update, I don’t have a media to try option 3 starting from a recovery media.
Plus with a fast start up speed, option 4 (the F8 method) doesn’t work.

Does anyone have a further method to get into Safe Mode?

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

Make a recovery drive on a PC that has Windows 10 and use that. It’s your only option.

Jared Fallick

I have total black screen and can’t do or select anything after I turn on my computer. All I can see is the mouse cursor. I made a recovery drive from another Windows PC. How do I activate this drive if I can’t do/see anything on my black screen?

felgall

This means that the desktop has failed to load. If you press CTRL-ALT-DEL you should be able to start the task manager. From there you can select the File tab and then New Task to run msconfig (or any other program for that matter).

Jill

Thank you so much! I got a blue screen of death a few minutes after upgrading to 10 and had no idea what to do until I read your comment. CTRL-ALT-DEL brought back my desktop. Yay!

hoova

make sure you have nothing plugged into your computer,I built a new computer andif i have a flash drive plugged in i get the flashing cursor in the top left corner,it took me a few minutes to workout what the problem was

Frank Perrella

Hi and thanks for your submission. After you have the black screen and flashing cursor what did you do to get the windows 10 to boot?

Jay

I have that same exact problem black screen and nothing else. i i hit the windows key I get a busy icon.

Foosking

On the black screen with cursor press CTRL+ALT+DEL then in the bottom right corner click the power icon then press and hold SHIFT key while clicking on restart.

Dave

This worked even without a cursor present. Thanks

Tom

These guys are too busy showing how smart they are to solve this problem. Notice the “fixes” only work if your computer already boots up.. in other words, only those that don’t need the fix can use the fix..

James

You’re absolutely right. I’ve been stuck on this Windows repair screen all night and can’t figure out how to access any of that crap. If I was, I wouldn’t be stuck on the stupid Windows repair screen!

John

I realise this thread is old, but I’d like to help the poor soul who gets stuck. @Tom, that’s neither a kind nor a smart remark. Of course, when the bootloader is broken, you cannot go into safe mode either. That’s not a shortcoming of this article or these comments. Safe mode is designed to solve all kinds of problems, i.e. with drivers, but if startup is “broken” safe mode cannot help.
As long as the bootloader is okay, shutting down the PC three times is a failsafe way to get to the Troubleshooting Options and hence the Startup modes.

Anonymous

if you press f8 and shift cant go to safe computer go in windows defender offline

David Lloyd

That’s an unacceptable solution. I don’t have a way to do that. I’ve been restarting my computer repeatedly for the last several hours. My only other option is my Android cell phone, which isn’t going to let me create a boot disk for my Windows 10 upgrade. I’m disabled, and I depend on my computer for nearly everything I do. This is a serious problem for me. I should never have upgraded. I cannot lose my apps, because I depend on them, and some cannot be reinstalled, such as my scanner driver and my adobe software that tells me that permanent license to use acrobat has “expired,” while not providing any working links to access support.

Since Windows 10 cannot be relied upon to boot correctly, it MUST provide a means to reach safe mode during the boy process.

Faizan

I totally agree with your last para.

AJ Virani

I am having the same exact problem, you can get to the start up settings screen options by power cycling a few times once the first windows logo comes up after reboot. You may have to try up to 5 times but you should enter recovery mode, that page will give you the error code and you can hit F8 on it to get to the various startup settings including safe mode. Unfortunately I can’t get into safe mode either. Trying other options.

Holly

I am having this same issue. Except now, after I have tried all other options it starts up and … fails then goes to a different blue error screen that states” NFTS_FILE_SYSTEM” Reboots on it’s own, then I get stuck at “Choose your keyboard layout.” Rendering my mouse and keyboard inactive and I cannot get out of it.

momo220

Richard did you figure it out or not?, i have the same problem and drive me crazy

Aaron hite

Ya i had a different issue i was reseting and my pc died and now it just loads the asus logo and keeps repeating

nowires01

FYI… Yes, there’s not F8/Safe Mode option, but there’s advance option to reset Win 10 and retain files…
** Reboot device… you can keep pressing F12 every second.. You device may boot asking to go into Bio and that is NOT where you want to go.. Hit ESC… Win 10 will now begin to load, you may now see a “Please Wait ” pop up as Win 10 try’s to boot.
**You’ll see a new blue window with options to Reset/repair Win 10, advance Options.. Choose this option and NOT Restart Win 10.
**Eventually you want to reset Win 10 with the option to retain your files or a clean install.. Your choice.
** Just let it reinstall and your good to go.
By the way if you have an Admin assigned to the device it will ask for the Admin password… SO be prepared

Good luck

Nowires01

Naveen

Thanks man thank you very much cause this fucking lap have bios boot option and windows fail to boot and no f8 working finaly this works thanks again dude

Rengard

I have a laptop what do i do ._.

Chris

As an alternative to digging out a recovery disk, interrupt the startup by powering the computer off when the manufacturers logo or Windows logo is being displayed. Repeat this 3 times, you should then see “loading” appear beneath the logo, at this point allow the computer to continue booting and you will then have the option to try various recovery methods including Safe Mode.

rubie2262

THANKS It works. Now i can work on it. Thanks again!!!!!!

Erica

THANK YOU!!!! I have tried like a hundred different solutions in the past few weeks!!! Interrupting during booting logo worked! Thanks again!!!!

Icelancer

Sticky this solution!

Stacy

Thanks Chris, this fix worked great! You da Man!

Erwin

Hi Chris,

I tried everything to get my Windows 10 into safety mode (like F8, shift F8 etc) nothing worked. But this solution actually works. I even contact McAfee since my probs started after an update of their software… many Thanks, my laptop is up & running now.

Dan

Chris, I have a Dell 7510 on it you have to wait not just when the Logo is displayed but once it starts to load then shut down I only had to due this twice, from there I was able to follow the menus to get into Safe Mode. Thanks

Tasneem

Hi
Thank you for this. Nothing else worked for me, but this : powering off when logo display did it. Thank you once again

Tasneem

Now this is also not working. Second reboot starts automatic repair, and it is not solving the problem. Please help

Daniel Osenda

I had exactly the same problem. Then I read on Asus (https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1013074/) that after a few consecutive boot failures Windows 10 will display a start up screen that will give you a chance to boot in safe mode (and many other options). Though I have an HP laptop it worked as expected. After maybe 4 or 5 (power on, boot fail, power off), Windows came out with the screen shown in Asus Web site. Then I booted in safe mode. Later I rebooted in normal mode and, a miracle happened, this time Windows booted well…

David

They didn’t mention the last method: while the Windows is booting, you have to reset your PC if you have a dedicated button for that. You should do this about 3 times. Then Windows checks for errors, wait, then the advanced boot menu opens. I hope this helps!

Suoercat

If the boot fails 3 times, you will get automatic repair, then go to troubleshoot
You may need to interrupt it manually using the reset button

meddy

This article proved invaluable… I finished a Win10 stall and my AVG prompted to update. I updated and from that point on, I kept getting this error (avgcsrvx.exe) it would just keep popping up and various things would happen preventing the OS from completely coming up (some icons, partial taskbar and this error message popping up, erratic mouse, slow…). I figured if I could get to safe mode I could delete AVG and at least get back on track.
I had been able to get to the login screen and from there held the Shift and clicked the restart. It didn’t work the first time but about the third attempt it worked. I uninstalled AVG and did a restart. Thanks!!!

Defalt2111

For me, it didn’t work either on first try, I also needed a second… But I had a problem with my GPU driver, I became a bluescreen after logging in when the driver has loaded (about 15 sec)..

4c3T

“But I had a problem with my GPU driver, I became a bluescreen after logging in when the driver has loaded (about 15 sec)..”

Sorry, but I found this very funny =0P

lee

AVG screwed me up too.

Chris

Wow… people still use AVG?! C’mon. it’s 2015. You’re better off only using Microsoft Security Essentials.

Dante

Microsoft Security Essentials cannot be installed in Windows 8, 8.1 or 10. It has been stopped after Windows 7. You can use Windows Defender, which is pre-installed in the system other than that you cannot use it. It is no more compatible. There are other securities which can be used and is better than AVG.

Paul

AVG free has a much much higher detection rate than MSE. I used to install MSE on customer computers and a few of them got plenty of malware and a few viruses. Installing AVG caught everything

Robert

AVG has higher FALSE detection rate and is as bloated as Norton and McAfee.

Windows Defender (MS Security) does its job, isn’t buggy and doesn’t try to extort money from you every 10 min.

Paul

I’ve done custom installs of it without the identify theft crap or the email crap (only applies to pop3/imap retrieval) and it works pretty well. It’s never seemed to slow down as much as mcafee/norton at all. MSE/Defender is indeed faster, but I’ve found it catches less. This is from cases of finding computers with MSE that has viruses, and AVG caught them once I installed it. They were not false detections, but I have seen a few of those too but usually AVG is like ‘unsure’, and it doesn’t automatically get rid of it if it thinks it’s a false detection

I also like Malware Bytes as just a scanner, it catches a few things neither AVG or MSE catches

Steven McDolly

I suggest people don’t use AVG anymore. Recently, I read an article, I almost forgot where it came from, but in their terms and agreement, they told that they will sell our data that AVG collected from our computer, that’s the price of a free software!

Jim

I think you did forget, not almost. 🙂

Miki

Another little bit barbarian way on PC with not the fastest SSD: you push the Reset button during startup (as soon as the windows logo shows up), and next time you are offered for troubleshooting. Than you make your way to safe mode for example.

iconmaster

Thank you so much for this piece of advice! It”s the only thing that worked for my PC. I cannot thank you enough.

MR.Yoda

Hi. I dont know if it work for all MBs but on my MSI Gaming 7 still work under all OS pulling out the power cabel on OS load screen. After that pc should go directly into safe mode. ( for me without keyboard and it is fast enought for ssd too 🙂 )
It also works for most notebooks just pull out the battery in the same time like on the Pc..

Monty

Trying to make a recovery drive. Get message: “We can’t create a recovery drive on this PC” “Some required files are missing…yada yada…” So if a newly installed device driver or software bluescreens the PC before getting to the start screen, I have to reset/reinstall windows instead of just removing that 1 item? WTF?

Richard Jones

I have since read that some people have had some success on Windows10 with installations where it goes into the blue screen loop. They let is boot up and login, then as quick as they can, get into Task Manager and do End Process on the two AMD’s Catalyst processes in the Processes tab. Then their machines don’t Blue Screen after 60 seconds, and they are able to update their Graphics drivers in device manager to the latest, and it gets them stable again. Hope this works for some people, I gave up and went back to Windows 8.1

Defalt2111

Can’t you just start into safe mode (shift + restart in these 60sec) and then remove the driver via device manager ? I got nvidia and this way it worked for me… I only had had about 15sec to do so… So can’t try for amd…

theroostaar

Well done sir. Shift Restart was the answer. Thank you.

Anonymous

Shift Restart worked for me.

I cannot logon to windows 10 after the upgrade, hopefully this will let me get in and fixed the username files.
Thanks

Wade

My PC gets stuck on welcome back screen I click next and off she goes again

Amy

we are having the exact same problem, Wade. Have you found a solution for this problem yet? Besides picking up the computer and throwing it out the window?

Andrew

Did you ever resolve this issue? Having to deal with the same thing.

Richard Jones

Second attempt on Windows 10, still got Blue Screen of Death, after a minute of boot up. Tried the option above I mentioned about Ending the Process on Catalyst in Task Manager, which stopped it rebooting. Yay. Then went onto the laptop’s manufacturer to download latest video card driver, installed, machine no longer reboots 🙂

Frank  Hamann

Windows 10 sucks.

Win Nevermore

I concur

Mary Lee Buis

I totally agree, I hate windows 10! Now I’m stuck, can’t get into safe mode, can’t do anything really. Did I mention I hate windows 10?

Robert

Installed Windows 10 and love it to be honest. However, when I installed the Radeon drivers using the “automatic” method, the system rebooted and went to total black screen.

Finally shut it down during start up and on the 4th try the Windows 10 started a diagnostic that allowed me to reset my restore point. Come to find out it was the video settings/drivers that screwed it up.

Now I’m a happy camper.

steve

This was the only way i could get to safe mode.

Now the only option seems to be Go back to previous build. Still waiting on the outcome.

Kevin

I just upgraded 8/4/15. All was going fairly well with only a couple of application issues I fixed. Day 3, at some point some updates were applied. Day 5, my screen lock shows with a network icon in the lower right and responds to Crtl+Alt+Delete but then no login prompt appears. Only the background graphic is visible with the network, handicap, and power icons in the lower right. I tried typing my username and password in the blind but that did nothing, nor did restart and power cycles.

I found that to enter “safe” mode you must now hold the shift key while you click the power icon. I’d created a system restore point just after the upgrade but using it *failed* and it stated it was reverting back.

Curiously on restart though, it presented “Getting Windows Ready, Do Not Turn Off your Computer” as it rebooted. Then it said “Working on updates, 100%, Do not Turn Off Your Computer”. That was followed by the same message except starting 15% until complete. Who knew, right?

I continued waiting for about 20 minutes and it said “Restarting” and rebooted.

Again it presented “Getting Windows Ready” and “Working on Updates” sequences. Finally 10 min later my screen saver has returned with C+A+D and now it let me log in. It’s back but oddly now displays that “System Restore completed successfully” and has the proper date.

I’d like to call this success but since I’ve no idea WTF happened or how it solved itself (we’ll with my help), so I will leave it to someone here to answer.

Good luck out there.

Kevin

PS. I suspect that my issue may be Nvidia related since I do not see an updated driver for my GeForce 8600 GT listed. It may have tried to update the latest regardless, though I’m not finding specific evidence in the Event Viewer.

That said I decided to stop allowing Updates to be installed automatically. I checked out and installed Microsoft KB3073930 which lets me hide or show hidden updates (wushowhide.diagcab).

If anyone comes across the the last two hours of my life spent chasing this, please put it to good use.

Laurens

Hiya. Im having the same problem right now.
Dont know what is going on. A roll back probably helps always but doesnt tell me what would have gone wrong, just like you said. Still dont understand why windows keeps putting stuff on the market that is not ready yet. Windows 10 works but the safemode sucks. This is the second time im trying to get in. The first time worked but to get out wasnt without issues. But this is just not acceptable anymore and am completely stupified.

Laurens

Hiya. Im having the same problem right now.
Dont know what is going on. A roll back probably helps always but doesnt tell me what would have gone wrong, just like you said. Still dont understand why windows keeps putting stuff on the market that is not ready yet. Windows 10 works but the safemode sucks. This is the second time im trying to get in. The first time worked but to get out wasnt without issues. But this is just not acceptable anymore and am completely stupified. Edit:http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/292753-turn-off-safe-mode-boot-command-line.html if you follow the link the guy mentioned in this link. You can solve this problem through command prompt. It worked for me. And got in to safemode again. I told msconfig to boot into registry solving or something. I didnt know what it was for and tried it. But when doing so the login window does not appear indeed. I have no clue what this registry thing does. If anyone knows… greets.

Alex

I had he getting windows ready thing too, was getting quite frustrated pressing the power button on my v important laptop

Alex

I had the getting windows ready thing too, was getting quite frustrated pressing the power button on my v important laptop

Thomas

None of the above seems to work, at all. I’m constantly seeing diagnose problems screen, I get the cursor, C+A+D doesnt do anything, and if by a miracle I get to the Startup Settings in Step Two (don’t ask me how I have no clue), it merely restarts and sends me back to Diagnosing your PC hell. Thanks MicroSoft.

Hal

In IT support this is a real nightmare since we can’t easily fix issues people are suffering from on new devices as practically every new Windows computing device have been UEFI since about 2012. How hard would it have been for Microsoft to acknowledge holding down a button to bring you to the menu? They’ve more or less glorified the useless ‘wipe and restore’ mentality that less skilled repair folks engage in when a simple safe mode & adjustments could easily fix problems.

Paul

Just spent a couple of hours trying to help a friend with windows 10 black screen. Eventually identified screen driver issue. But having to get into safe mode by interrupting boot and then using the advanced options. Ended up causing a corrupt boot sector. Microsoft short cutting again! Hal’s suggestion easy to implement for Microsoft if they had any foresight.

Tom Barry

Ok I got to burn a windows system repair disk
On a working version of 10 used it on my windows 7 update which was in a loop as others have no fun at all so it gave me some options but I went for the reset windows keep personal files after this step it’s not in a loop but keyboard and mouse are not working so maybe updating and won’t give me access till done oh tried all other ways could not get safe mode ect or create recovery media oh and I had to disconnect drive to get into bios to boot from DVD hope this may help a little
I

Prabhat

I have similar situation. After window 10 upgrade, my monitor screen was flickering. I tried for safe mode but can’t get. After restart, I can go to Bios setup but not on safe mode even if I press F8. I am using Lenovo ThinkCentre Edge 71. On the reboot I can see window logo in booting process and after then small flicker on the screen and than permanent blue screen. Key board and mouse remains inactive. If I push power button again, it turns off the CPU. If I start by power button, the process remain as it is and window never boot up complete. Anu suggestions.

 Bev

Thank you, thank you, thank you!,, I installed Win10 and my computer has been locked up for 3 days. I tried everything to get to boot up. Your shift-restart worked!

alex5723

F8 is disabled by default.
To enable open elevated cmd.
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
Reboot
Tadaa! F8 is back.
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard to disable it again.

Griff

This worked like a boss. Thanks, dude!

Amy

No, it’s not disabled, per se´ it is just that the new OS boots so fast and the new hard drives are so fast that they don’t even recognize that a key is pressed, unless you have an older, legacy system.
That is why it isn’t working to get into safe mode upon start up in most computers that are newer than 2013 models.

Jayel Draco

but when stuck in a loop and not able to access safe mode, how do you get to a place where you can do that?

George Jones

Successful install but as it apparently pulled in the latest update during the install process, my machine now is stuck in a reboot cycle each time I log in. And as stated above, no way to start in safe mode. MS does not even apparently give a choice during upgrade of turning off auto upgrade (upgrade from win 7 64 pro). Expected as much. Ms pushed it out the door too quickly. Customer tests the product after release. Glad I didn’t upgrade my main machine. Will probably upgrade my win 10 machine back to vista. At least I never had a vista install fail. Vista was just a resource pig but at least was stable (for me anyway)

Daniel

I also had trouble getting into safe mode, having UEFI and an SSD drive.
HOWEVER, I pressed and hold Shift+F8, got a prompt from the BIOS.
While keeping shift+f8 pressed, I went through the prompt, and then safe mode appeared! 🙂

Karen

Same issue will not BOOT, screen flickers, no keyboard or mouse. PC worked fine on win7, then went to shit after FREE Upgrade. SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT!!!! YOU JUST CRASHED MY UNIT!!!

Rick Kosinski

If your problems (printing, creating PDFs, and getting the swirly ball with “not responding”) with Windows 10, prompts you to try resetting, but receive an error message that it is unable to reset because something is missing, should you attempt to reset in safe boot mode?

Philipp.H

Hey Guys,
Yesterday I installed a Geforce Driver from the Geforce Experience, called Geforce Windows 10, to work ideally with Windows 10 that I had already installed and had no issus with it. However, in the middle of the installation the screen goes black and shows the mouse cursor, permanently rotation (the little loading circle). This went on for a while until I turned the pc of and went to sleep. Next morning, no matter what I do, the black screen is still there and all attempts of getting to safe mode have failed. I have an SSD and it doesn’t recognise any keys during the boot up and goes straight into the black screen each time I restart it. Do I have to remove the graphics card or is there an option left to do this with software fixes? Any help would be much appreciated!
Philipp

Philipp.H

Edit: I fixed the issue. Using 2 tips from a friend I was able to restart and fnish the computer without going into the safe mode.

1) When the computer restarts, the instant the BIOS pops up, showing the logo of the hardware etc. I was able to press F12 and that brought me to the BIOS. There I clicked the 3rd option that said something along the lines of “Fix issues” or “Resolve problems” something like that (dont remember as I was excited and anxious to get it fixed again :P). Then the screen went from pink into blue and it configurated the updates, I presume the ones I had started the previous night and then everything worked fine from there.

2) By pulling the power plug of the computer and restarting it 3-4 times that brings up the Safe mode automatically because the computer detects and issue upon the boot up failing over and over.

This was a real pain in the neck and I hope one of the tips works for you so you can resolve your own issue.
Good luck!

Gabby

I installed Windows 10 and I got to the point where you choose the language of your keyboard. But at this point either mouse or keyboard don’t let me select the option. What shall I do now.

Many thanks
Gabby

Greg

Installed win 10 and crashed after a few days on my Samsung laptop. Continually loads Aptio setup utility. Cannot change settings and get to safe mode and load last configuration. Any ideas? Thanks.

GLaDOS

My computer is stuck in the “Diagnosing problems” boot loop. I can access the UEFI Boot, but there are no useful things there.

Rayan

Lol! OSX on Macs boot even faster than Windows 10 and there’s different keys you can hold (not hit repetitively like a monkey) to boot into different modes.

Microsoft just doesn’t have the knowledge to do it but they won’t admit it. Stop the bullshit Microsoft!

olyhoop

my starting page in win10 says administrator and then Your account has been disabled . Please see system administrator. What can I do to restore this account? I am the system administrator myself. Thanks.

Christian Iversen

Thank you, you have saved my life mr.Neagu! blessings to you!

Jerry S

Upgraded to windows 10 from windows 7 now it hangs up at Verifying DMI Pool. Nothing I do will get me past there. ???

Nigel Jennings

Similar problem here. I installed Windows 10 with no problems about a week ago but there has been a succession of minor issues ever since. Yesterday my AMD graphics driver was updated on the HP Support utility recommendation, after which I lost sound and everything became unstable. Tried to do a restart and the PC crashed to a blue screen saying “restarting” with the swirly thing. Needless to say the PC didn’t restart and switching off had no effect; each time I switched on again it was the same screen. However, removing the power cord as suggested here a few times together with some pressing of F8 did eventually bring up the recovery menu (maybe the menu would have appeared anyway). The PC would not respond to the ‘recovery’ option so I moved on to the ‘reset’ option and followed the recommendation to backup files to an external drive. This failed after cataloging all the files despite there being plenty of spare hard disc capacity. Whatever the next option was, I just blindly accepted it and eventually it progressed to restarting the PC, doing lots of updates in the process. Took ages but eventually everything restarted normally. The HP Support utility offered me another AMD driver update which so far I have declined. What a nightmare!

April in Florid

Yes yes yes this worked for me …. Hallelujah!!!! Thank you!!!! I had an update for my display drivers and it backed my screen with that dreadful spinning busy mouse.. But I finally got to the advanced options by unplugging it the three times. Thank you so so much!

Keith Statham

When I use option 2 (restart holding the shift key down) and get to Advanced Options I find that option 5 Startup Settings is missing? Its this option that would otherwise let you select a start up in safe mode. So I don’t believe option 2 actually lets you boot into safe mode!

Dave Welch

I can’t get past the “Welcome Back Dave” screen. Enter the correct password, stuck, crash, restart. I want to go back to windows 7. I was happy with it. Why did I fall for 10???

Amy

Because Dave, like the rest of us, you thought it would be better. But, like the rest of us, you were wrong. Now we are stuck with this pos and have to figure out how to fix it. Coincidentally – we are in the exact same position you are in, right now. But I will figure it out, some way – shape – form – or another and will post the answer here. Working on it now.

Amy

Ok, Finally got a solution to go back to Windows 7. I was able to get the computer to accept an F8 key after a few restarts. I had tried to just holding it down, and that didn’t work, so then I tried pressing it very, very fast the second it started to boot and I must have done it right because as soon as the windows icon appeared I saw words appear with it “Please Wait” and low and behold I got the wonderful screen with options to appear. From there I selected “Troubleshooting”, Then I selected “Go back to previous build” and now it is reversing the update and going back to Windows 7.
Once it is back to windows 7, I will make sure I have EVERY update installed first this time and then try again… if I get the same results, then I will do the same thing and revert back to its previous build, again, but I won’t upgrade to 10 until they get it fixed the right way.

Hope this helps someone. FYI my computer specs are as follows (from what I can recall from looking at them a few minutes ago, I didn’t write it down and it is an older computer)

CPU 2.6 g
Memory 16g
SATA HD 1TB
yr made 2009, gateway, purchased – no idea, I got it a year ago from family – it had a virus on it and they thought it was garbage. That is how I get all my Windows based computers.
Bus speed – can’t remember
GPU – offboard, can’t remember stats

other than that, it is whatever it came with when purchased. I have not upgraded anything to it, yet. Gave it to my son (18yr old) as a gamer computer because it can be upgraded to full gamer capabilities.

bebe

freebe windows, here to spyy. get it NOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW.
FREEEE DXXXXXX 12.. Gamer choice for super gaming…:))))

David Welch

I couldn’t get the f8 to work for me. I wore out my index finger trying. But I did have another way to get the advanced options menu. This mother board I bought in 2010 to replace a melted Dell allows for a couple of options before it boots the os, hit delete to enter setup is the one, which goes to the bios options and one is hit F8 to QFlash. So then I hit reset and restarted and it booted with the “please wait” message and let me into advanced recovery and “go back to previous build”. Not sure how long it should take but for an hour now it’s been on”go back to previous build”, “restarting” with the little dots rolling in a circle. I might be stuck in a temporal causality loop.

bilce

I had same problem. I turned of my screen resolution to the lowest before I left, to save energy. So screen turned off basically. Then when I came back after an hour i could not increase the screen resolution. just black screen. I started to boot up again but again black screen after welcome screen, however i could see mouse pointer. I could turned on computer on safe mode, but again when i restarted i got black screen again.
THEN WHEN I UNPLUGGED THE POWER CABLE, MAGIC HAPPENED SCREEN CAME BACK :)) i tried again plug power cable, screen get blacked, tried again plugging the power cable screen came back.

So you might try to unplug your power cable. It solved my problem.

vahid

i installed windows 10 and get 100% progress. when my windows restart and show windows logo an after waiting icon my screen off and on and show waiting icon again and goes to loop an show waiting progress again and again an screen off and repeat!! what can i do?

Vix

Nothing was working for me until I found some advice on a different thread:
Turn it off, remove the battery, unplug the laptop from its power source, leave it off a few minutes, hold down the power button for 5-10 seconds, plug power back in BUT NOT THE BATTERY, turn on laptop. It should start normally. Then put battery back in at your earliest convenience.

scott

Didn’t work for me….

Ofer Nathan

Like many in this thread I was stuck in the black hole of the boot sequence.
The OS was not able to wake up , the F8 was not functional.
After a frustration night, I thought I found solution: to create a bootable USB, boot from there and try to fixed or diagnose or move to safe mode from there.
How to do that, can be found here: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/create-windows-10-bootable-usb-flash-drive/
Or here : http://www.groovypost.com/news/install-test-windows-10-technical-preview/

Fortunately, when I tried to hold the BIOS reset sequence, and missed it, a few times, the OS (which tried to boot but was stucking in black screen) discovered that something is wrong (due to my constant shouting down the PC) and run the diagnostic tool which bypassed the failure point and gave me some choices.

I chose to reset the whole PC deleting all the apps and keeping my data.
It worked although I had to reinstall all my software.

Ofer

exhausted

Microsoft should not provide a free product that crashes your computer. After decades of them being in the software business it’s striking that so many if us can’t even start out computers after thus update . Most people would have to take the computer into to shop for a fix. Microsoft should be ashamed and bury they’re heads in the sand!

AllahDaGreat

Lamdows 10 was not Ready for the World yet. Downgrade back to Win 7 or 8 for another 10 more years until a new true successor comes out. Seriously it is a unstable platform. And yet it already got hack. Typical trash. DX12 is not gonna be standardlize if most peeps is already diverting back to older windows. They can give a rat ass about it for this unreliable unstable O.S.’es.. They need to fire who ever made this crap..

joe

iv given up- thankfully after about n hour i downgraded back to 8.1-what a waste, they had more than 6 months to figure it out.

SJ Rader

I have a crashed Windows 7 laptop, just spent hours trying to fix it. Windows 7 repair disk won’t do anything, and neither will the Windows 10 install USB that I created. On the Windows 7 computer, I accessed safe mode and the command prompt through Advanced Options. Did a complete chkdsk /f /r D: , which showed a couple of bad clusters, but said that there wasn’t enough room on the disk to replace them…even though the report said that there was space. Rebooted…same problem, sometimes stuck in Diagnosis cycle, sometimes able to log in, get desktop, but can’t open anything. Keep getting BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO error message! I upgraded on my Windows 8.1 without any problems so far. But I want to use my older computer too! If I get to the SAFE MODE, what do I do then?

dmp

After running ok for weeks my system couldn’t find the boot drive and after some changes in the BIOS I am getting “Fixing Hard Drive” and it just sits there at 1% and nothing happens! I have tried Safe Boot and selected Roll Back but it didn’t work either!

peter

i upgraded to 10 last weekend only to find the system would boot all the way to the desktop with no app shortcuts on the desktop…through the start menu you could activate any and all apps however they would all operate only in the background…

called microsoft “technical” support, the indians first request was to access my system – impossible for a start since i could not access any network settings to allow it and secondly only a moron would allow a subcontracted company from the 3rd world access to their system

they emailed me instructions which “may” help get the system going, all of the instruction required me to boot into the system and then, you guessed it, activate applications and manipulate them!

in the end i had to resort to booting to the desktop multiple times and switching it off at the wall until it crashed, not a method i would recommend as you risk damaging your motherboard

i have reset the system back to the original win 10 installation and will roll it back to win 8 this weekend… it is not worth the headaches

Bob P

My windows 10 died yesterday. During boot up it shuts off the keyboard and mouse, and then displays the first screen with the date and time. I have an MSI gaming G series motherboard and I can log into the bios – so the keyboard and mouse work there. But as soon as I exit the bios the mouse and keyboard shut off. So what can I do?

D. Eric Soutiere

Add similar solution: Total 5 ways.
Start computer and hold power button until shut off. This triggers the auto repair and gets you to the (choose keyboard menu), mentioned above By Codrut Neagu on 06/10/2015

Rune Rasmussen

Totally agree. I’m an IT supporter, but have not used Win 10 much. Recently I installed Win 10 on a brand new Asus ROG gaming system, SSD, it boots extremely fast. Win 10 got stuck on updating an Nvidia driver and perfectly booted in black nothingness. Argh. Tried everything, nothing worked, black screen of death continued. Had no other Win 10 system near me to create a recovery drive. No reset button. So I had to use to most barbaric method and rip out the power cord during boot. Did that nearly 20 times, close to giving up – but suddenly this extremely fast system recognized that something was wrong – a blue screen of help emerged – and for the first time I could choose Safe Mode – and could fix the problem.
I’m sticking to Win 7 for now on my own system – PCs are not simple tablets, but have immense hardware variations, thus risk of problems are much higher – and therefore the need for sufficient repair options. With Win8 this may not have been noticed much, because many did not upgrade from Win 7 to 8. But with the massive upgrades from Win 7 to 10, I’m very curious how Microsoft will react to this very serious (and in my opinion completely unacceptable) Win 10 issue.

Knoc-one

When you sign out of Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10061 and return to the lock screen, you might see only a black screen with a responsive mouse cursor. Pressing the Alt+Tab keys or the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys has no visible effect.
Workaround

If you are experiencing this issue, follow these steps to sign into Windows:

At the black screen, press the Ctrl key once on an attached physical keyboard. (You won’t see any visible change, but pressing the Ctrl key will place the cursor in the password box that you’re currently not able to see.)

Now type the password of the user that just signed out and press Enter.This will sign you back into Windows and the desktop will appear.

If you failed to sign in because you mistyped the password, press Enter once more. Then retype the password and press Enter.” …

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU ARE INSTALLING WINDOWS 10. AFTER ENTERING YOUR PASSWORD, THE CURSOR SHOULD VANISH FOR SEVERAL MINUTES WHILE WINDOWS COMPLETES THE INSTALL SETUP.

Jeff Hill

I have a new Dell and selected the Win 10 upgrade but need to revert. Here are some issues with using Shift-Restart:

1. I inserted the Dell USB recovery stick, but it didn’t show up in the “Use a Device” list.

Solution: reboot. It should now show up.

2. When I used the USB option, it loaded files then popped up a dialog that was so small I had to use a magnifying glass.

Solution: before restarting, go to Settings and change the display resolution (not just the text size!) to something lower, like 1024×768.

Al

Hi,

I haven’t tried this with Windows 10 yet, but will over the weekend, thought I would put it out there.

I had the same issue on several PC’s running UEFI bios and SSD. (They were on Windows 7, but still the same issue) They were too fast to execute the F8.

In the BIOS, under the boot section (on mine anyway) there is a section entitled POST delay. I increased that value (on mine to 3 seconds) and that gave the time necessary to execute the F8.

I will test with a failed Windows 10 box, as soon as I get the PC.

Al

OK, So the change I made (on an Asus mobo) delayed the POST and gave enough time to easily get into the BIOS. It did not help the F8 and may not be available on all PC’s.

What I ended up doing was to boot from CD using a Windows 7 Disc, which then let me get into some maintenance options, none of which worked of course. (Tried them all) However after doing that, followed by a forced shutdown, Windows 10 rebooted and offered me some new options.

From the advance features, I got to a Command prompt and enabled the F8 function using the command:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

(thanks to another website)

Rebooting let me get into Safemode and after cycling a couple of times through updates, all is well.

Hope that helps someone

Stanley Levinson

You can do safe boot, etc. though administrative tools in the Control Panel, search the CP for boot. Click on System Configuration. Clic on boot. It is self explanatory. I am finding that on Windows 8.1 and 10, you can do most things through the control panel. To me, this is simpler and more straight forward.

scott

I have Windows 10 and it was working fine. Today i get the white screen. Totally locked up. Cannot get to safe mode. Tried all these suggestions, e.g. bootable USB, take battery our and hold power key, F8, Shift+F8,etc. Cannot get to the restart button to try Shift+Restart. Nothing. HELP!