I have an old Compaq Presario 5000. The disk drives have not been working for a long time, but the system has still been working just fine. The only thing it is used for is to access the internet and I don't want to replace it for that. The system will only boot to safe mode. I have already tried to restore to a previous point, but that doesn't help. I really want to reset to factory settings, but cannot figure out how to do it. I have tried restarting the system and quickly pressing F1, F8, F10, F11, esc, etc., to no avail. F10 takes me to a screen that asks for the language (English, etc.) and then to other settings that are useless to me. I cannot use any disks, so I'm going to have to reset from the hard drive partition, but how can I get there? I can get into safe mode...is there any way to reset the system from safe mode?
If the System will boot only to Safe Mode, how is it "working fine?" EEOC
Thanks for the quick reply, I tried the suggestion from Johnw. When in the system configuration utility, under BOOT.INI, the SAFEBOOT box was NOT checked. Now, on the GENERAL TAB, the SELECTIVE STARTUP box was checked. I changed it to NORMAL STARTUP, clicked APPLY, and tried to restart. It went right back into SafeMode. When I went back to the system configuration utility it defaulted to the SELECTIVE STARTUP box. I tried it a couple of times, and the NORMAL STARTUP won't stick. The system is still defaulting to Safe Mode. By the way, the operating system is Windows XP Home. I can't manually change the configuration because that is only available in XP Pro.
Any other suggestions?
Also, btw, I thought it was obvious when I said the system was working fine otherwise, I meant "BEFORE" the Safe Mode loop occured. Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
Contact HP and get the OEM disk. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10
You may get more info from minidumps. Make sure it is Enabled.
Control Panel --> System --> Advanced --> Startup and Recovery --> Settings ---> Write debugging
information --> Complete memory dump.
On XP and 2003 systems, mini dumps are located at %SystemRoot%\Minidump, or c:\Windows\Minidump; kernel and full dumps are located at %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP or c:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP.
How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes
http://www.networkworld.com/news/20...
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/debug...
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devto...
Install Debugging Tools for Windows 64-bit Version
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devto...
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devto...
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showth...
Maybe this is how you get into your bios. # Compaq Presario - Press <Alt> <Ctrl> <Esc> at boot when you see the "Compaq" log in big letters.
http://www.computer-firstaid-servic...
If you can, I would try disabling your com ports.
