Arch Linux

dfeng

Member

Registered: 2012-06-18

Posts: 23

How to enter Windows 8.1 safe mode in syslinux?

My old notebook is running very slowly as Windows 8.1 always reads/writes IDE hard disk, so I disable many windows services. And after relogin, I cannot open almost every program even the Task Manager.
It has to enter the 'safe mode' to repair Windows. In syslinux bootloader, I select 'Windows 8.1' then press Enter  and as quickly as I can to press F8. There's no effect that Windows loads into normal mode.
I know that in Linux world everything is a file, so I think I can locate last changed files in Windows when disabled windows services and try to repair it. After a long time searching, in Archlinux I rename '/Win8.1/Windows/System32/config' folder to config.bak ('/Win8.1' is where I mount C:/ partition) and then restart to Windows.
It works! Windows loads into safe mode.
But let Windows to repair itself is a heavy work. I wonder if I can repair just one or a few files in Archlinux to do the easy job. So relogin to Archlinux and recheck the config.bak folder. Yeah! I find a 'RegBack' folder in which the files' modified time is early than that outside with the same file name. So my easy job is to:
$ cd /Win8.1/Windows/System32
$ cp config.bak/RegBack/* config.bak
$ mv config.bak config
Restart to Window, everything is back to good old day!
My lesson is YES EVERYTHING IS A FILE.
My question is beside the rename way, is there any way to enter Windows 8.1 safe mode in syslinux bootloader?

shulamy

Member

From: israel

Registered: 2010-09-11

Posts: 468

Re: How to enter Windows 8.1 safe mode in syslinux?

i think safe mode is astage after boot.

so you have to boot to win8 and then choose safe mode.

ezik

dfeng

Member

Registered: 2012-06-18

Posts: 23

Re: How to enter Windows 8.1 safe mode in syslinux?

the problem is that i have disabled some critical services (may be 'Appinfo' and 'ProfSvc') that i cannot open almost every program but can login. point to the lower left corner then click settings-change pc settings, there's no response. there's no way to choose reboot to safe mode within windows in my situation.

Gulver

Member

Registered: 2013-05-24

Posts: 208

Re: How to enter Windows 8.1 safe mode in syslinux?

Try to manually interrupt the process while windows loading, it will eventually ask you to.

If don't, try clicking the restart button with shift pressed, if that too would not work; better ask in a microsoft forum.

Last edited by Gulver (2014-01-08 00:02:03)