Need some help with getting into safe mode on XP.

[Yooformula]

I left the browser open after reading the GTR thread, and after about 20 minutes I came back to see all sorts of warnings about malicious software. It all looked just like the bs I dealt with a month ago with shit that looked like XP warnings but was really malware. Anyways, I cant reboot at all even safe mode, after the intial boot menu it just goes to a blank screen with a blinking dot.

any ideas? tia

[Slow5oh]

When the computer is booting up you gotta press and hold F8 if it says stuck key, power down and try again but tap just keep tapping it until it boots into safe mode menu

[Yooformula]

i have rebooted at least 20 times now holding it down with nothing

[Yooformula]

the only other screen i can get to is the "amibios new setup utility" after a brief flash of the MSI link to the future screen

[Slow5oh]

Do you have the XP disc? If so i'd try and boot into that and running chkdsk/Repair

here's a good write up on the XP Repair

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

[Tiresmoke]

Unplug any USB hard drives, phones, ect you might have plugged in. My computer will try and boot from the SD card in my phone and throw an error if I have my phone plugged into the USB.

[British_Ben]

Do you have the XP disc? If so i'd try and boot into that and running chkdsk/Repair

here's a good write up on the XP Repair

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If you have the disc, boot into recovery console. After selecting your install directory (c:/WINDOWS, should be option 1) and entering the admin password (if there is one, if not just press enter), type the following:

fixmbr
fixboot

Then reboot the computer via ctrl-alt-del and tap F8 about once a second until you get the menu to select safe mode. Once you're in you should be able to attempt clean up of the malware (malware bytes, hijack this, etc.).

Good luck!

[Yooformula]

thanks for the tips. couldnt get recovery console to come up and no options for repair or safe mode so I did a reinstall. almost all of my media is stored on a portable hd but settings and passwords are lost.