Cannot access safe mode

[oliverhunt]

Today my pc has been acting up, in particular windows. When i booted it up rgis afternoon, I got stuck on the windows 10 loading screen, (the one with the blue window and the dots in a circle) it spent ages on there, which i knew was odd because i had my OS installed on an SSD, it then said that windows encountered a problem and it took me to preparing automatic repair, which yet again took about 10 minutes to load. It then asked me to choose my keyboard layout, then took me to the troubleshooting screen, it is supposed to give you 6 options, including startup settings, but startup settings simply wasn't there? for the record, startup repair didn't work, and system restore didn't work either, (it asked me to restart and select an operating system, which i couldn't figure out how to do.) But since startup settings wasn't there, and my pc was stuck in this loop, i can't get it into safe mode. has anyone got any ideas on what is going on? or how I can get it to boot in safe mode?

Also, no matter how much I restart my pc it always follows this same loop.

 

[Colif]

That system restore behaviour is just odd, I seen reports of it but never believed it. why would system restore even see 2 OS? It should only see win 10 unless you recently upgraded to the creators edition and it can still see windows.old for some reason (but then version updates meant to wipe restore points)

Start up options seems to come and go in that menu, I am not entirely sure why, might be something like secure boot being on?

is there anything on C drive you want to rescue? try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ - also handy to see if ssd is still working though if you booting into winre, it seems to work of sorts.

Also, on another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

installer might not have startup options either but it can get you into that menu faster than 10 minutes. Its worth looking for start up options on it

you could try running chkdsk c: /f in cmd prompt, that is only type of chkdsk that actually works with ssd. normally slow ssd loads are to do with drivers, its really hard to test the drive without windows.

 

[oliverhunt]

Thanks for the reply, I decided to disconnect my other hard drive, which I failed to mention was making a buzzing noise on boot, apologies. but I removed the hard drive so that only my SSD was in use, and the pc booted up completely fine, which I found was odd.

 

[Colif]

had windows been on other hdd at any time? it might be where system restore was seeing the other operating system

HDD slowing down boot times is perfectly normal if the hdd itself is dying. Windows sends a message to all hardware at boot and waits for a reply. if hdd is on its last legs, it can cause this stall. I don't know how long windows will wait

You need to backup everything on old hdd and replace it. Hdd aren't meant to make any noise.

 

[oliverhunt]

Yes, windows had been installed on there before I got the SSD, guess that must have been why. And it turns out the hard drive is faulty after running some tests, so i'm in the process of replacing it now. Thanks for your help Colif!