8 Safe Mode

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by philby, Nov 29, 2012.

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  1. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    Hello All

    Has anyone managed to boot from cold into SM? I've tried beating F8 and also Shift+F8 to death but just can't do it!

    I understand how to 'activate' SM from within 8, but I'll mostly need to do this from cold...

    I also understand I'll be able to access SM from a user-created Recovery Drive, but it would be nice to know the simpler key-tap route...

    Thanks

    philby
     
  2. treehouse786

    treehouse786 Registered Member

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    did you keep hold of the shift key or tip you tap it like you did the f8 key?
     
  3. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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  4. treehouse786

    treehouse786 Registered Member

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    that still does not address the OP's question, if you can get into windows then no 3rd party programs are required to boot into safe mode. you could just use msconfig

    1 way is to interrupt the boot process by restarting the machine whilst it is booting up then the next time it boots up it will give an option to boot into safe mode. not safe/ideal but its an option on a client's pc which is not booting properly into windows.
     
  5. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    Windows bootloader boots directly in the OS when you use hibernation.
    And since windows 8 cold startup is actually a hibernated boot, you'll never be able to boot in safe mode from cold, unless you disable the "fast startup".

    Panagiotis
     
  6. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    stapp: Thanks for that link...

    treehouse786: I was holding down Shift and tapping F8...to no avail. You're right - I was looking for a quick way into SM assuming a client's machine won't boot into Windows. Countless times in the past, I've F8-ed into SM and fixed whatever their problem was... but it looks like W8 will get to SM anyway if normal boot fails 2 or 3 times...

    pandlouk: It seems I don't really understand how W8's boot process is different from 7 etc. I'm not using 'hibernation' in the traditional sense, but I've noticed that when I cold start W8, I get a quick 'resuming...' message after my BIOS prompt, so I think I need to learn a bit more about what you said here: windows 8 cold startup is actually a hibernated boot, you'll never be able to boot in safe mode from cold

    To help others then (clients, I mean), it seems the best way would be for me to create both a recovery disk and drive that I assume would allow me to get to SM on pretty much any machine carrying an unbootable W8 - just in case I don't get offered the recovery / troubleshooting options while attempting to boot the stricken machine.

    Thanks All...

    philby
     
  7. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Control Panel - Power Options - Choose what the power buttons do... Under shutdown settings you will see "Turn on fast startup (recommended)" IF the power management of the machine supports it. There is a "learn more" link there and from the help file there is a "What is fast startup?" section. That will provide some information if you have access to Windows 8.
     
  8. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    Thank you - will take a look at that...
     
  9. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    Link to more information regarding Fast Startup - might help others who, like me, have been wondering...

    I was a bit foxed as to why my 8 install is using 22GB of my puny little SSD despite 'Hibernate' being turned off - now I see that hiberfil.sys is a generous 6.24GB :ouch:

    ...but then that's the price of turbo 'cold' boot speed...

    philby
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    philby.

    Use this from an Admin command prompt to get rid of hiberfil.sys.

    powercfg -h off

    What size is your pagefile? Just curious.

    Edit,,, From the BIBM manual

     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2012
  11. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    Hi Brian

    Yes, have turned off hibernation now and, of course, have reclaimed the 6GB.

    What foxed me was that Fast Startup was enabled even though Hibernate was unchecked in Power Options - I thought that, for Fast Startup to function, Hibernate had to be checked!

    Hence my initial confusion - I couldn't see why I had a huge hiberfil.sys when Hibernate was off...but now I see that both Hibernate and Fast Startup use hiberfil.sys but in different ways.

    Anyway, killing hiberfil.sys has only added 1 second max. to boot and, as expected, shortened shutdown time...so, the 6GB space reclaimed is inexpensive.

    Pagefile is currently system managed at 4608MB, though I could kill this completely (as I did when running 7 on this machine) - nothing I ever do requires paging and I don't understand crash dumps anyway :oops:
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2012
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    My pagefile is 5632 MB and I have 16 GB of RAM. Microsoft have made changes to pagefile size.

    I installed Win8 to a new SSD, new computer, last weekend.
     
  13. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    Interesting. I also have 16GB of RAM. If I check the pagefile setting it is system managed by default. The recommended size is 5627 MB but it says currently allocated is 16384 MB. Maybe I will just turn off system managed and go with their recommended size.

    Also, Fast Startup made no measurable difference for me in startup speed. It did slow the shutdown, and caused issues when I booted. I was having some trouble with USB devices until I turned it off. Win-win turning it off I guess.
     
  14. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Mine is System Managed. I've had a few crashes with installing software and each time the pagefile had been changed to 16 GB after I restarted. I restored an image to go back to a safe state and didn't try to install that software again.

    SpeedFan was one culprit.
     
  15. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    My pagefile has spontaneously changed to 2304 MB.
     
  16. philby

    philby Registered Member

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    Looks like I was wrong in thinking I'd be able to access SM from a USB Recovery Drive. The 'Startup Settings' icon, which allows access to SM and is available via 'Advanced Startup' within 8 itself, just isn't there in the Recovery Drive's 'Advanced Options' menu.

    So I'm still at a loss as to how I could get into SM if a user's machine won't boot: F8, Shift+F8, Recovery Drive don't work...

    One idea might be to try to somehow force a SM boot using BCDEDIT from the command prompt within the 'Recovery Drive' - but maybe that's impossible and/or nuts... and also a ridiculous hassle anyway - just to get into SM?

    Cheers

    philby
     
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