Solved No safe mode available!

[topman]

Hi, my wifes laptop has decided not to boot up. It goes through the motions but then comes up with the following mesage "the installed program cannot start. Click OK to turn of the computer". I have tried to start in safe mode but it will not give mr the option. I get the option to start "normally" or "launch startup repair" . The worry is that any saved info will be lost by a repair! Is this so??? If I could get to safe mode I would be able to remove whatever she needs and then do a repair. The laptop is a Toshiba Equium running Vista home 32bit. I am not very good with comps so any help would be well appreciated.

 

[Lorien]

Hi topman,

Welcome to Vista Forums!

Startup repair is quite different from a re-installation or a restore to factory settings. It should not affect her data whatsoever and is about as safe as anything gets when using computers. Choose it next time and see if that helps resolve the problem.

I hope this helps. If not, post back and we'll try other methods to regain access to her system. There are quite a few options yet to be tried and we won't suggest anything that will risk the data without first advising you of any such risks.

Good luck!

 

[topman]

Hi Lorien,

Thanks for the reply. It would not even do anything with the startup repair. It refused to do anything at all. Whilst I was at work my wife actually put the recovery disc in, and you can gess the outcome of that.

So the problem is solved :D, albeit the way I was trying to avoid!!

Thanks for your help

 

[Lorien]

Sorry to hear about that, but at least the computer is working again.

I will request that the thread be marked "solved."

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Incidentally, although VERY unlikely, it may still be possible to recover some of the data. Here's what I have on that for what it is worth and if you want to attempt it despite the slim chances of success:

Here are some free recovery programs which might help. Files aren't actually deleted until they are overwritten (though they're no longer available through conventional methods). If you decide to try these recovery programs, you should stop using your hard drive immediately so you don't overwrite the data you are trying to recover. Slave it to another PC and run the recovery from that PC. Even now you may have permanently lost some of them if you're using that same PC. If you can't do that (slave to another PC), you run the risk of overwriting the data with every action you do on the PC (but you still may be able to recover some of the files - it's a matter of luck).

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html(try Recuva ONLY - do not purchase any products that aren’t free – here or in any of the other links – I’m just suggesting the FREE options and have had problems with some of the commercial ones)
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/diskdigger.html(try this second - if it doesn’t work either chances of recovery are very slim but you can try the other options if you wish)

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/easusdfr.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/downloads/recuva/dlrecuva.html

http://www.softperfect.com/products/filerecovery/

http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/how-to-recover-your-lost-files/

Only you can decide if the data is important enough to take the PC to a data recovery expert to recover the files (they will have better programs and equipment to do so than any of us do and than I provided above). Do NOT go to Geek Squad or any of those big store centers - they mostly don't know what they're doing - take it to a data recovery expert. It will cost quite a bit (I mean, a LOT) and they usually offer no guarantees – you typically pay the same price if they recover everything or if they recover nothing. The decision is yours.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!