Help with safe mode

I went to my daughters house as her pc was running slow to see what I could do... she has windows xp profesional .... I installed norton system work and nortons security to help me ... and when her pc was restarted it didn't do much it would not let windows completely load up... it went to windows but didn't finish downloading all her programs... I know that the softwear was ok for xp as I use the same...I tried to get into safe mode but was unable.. when I try to get into safe mode it won't let me . it just brings up the partitions and stops.. could you please tell me how I can get into safe mode .. and is there a way to get into safe mode just using the keyboard.. as the mouse will be an hour glass like the pc is working and doesn't come back to an arrow to move around the system.. thank you so much.

 

I had somewhat the same problem with Win2000 -- big brother to XP.
Tried to get to safe mode, saw the partitions,devices, ect., being loaded as the screen scrolled, then it stopped, and gave me an error.

Sometimes, you will see items being loaded scroll by, the screen will go black and you will think it is frozen, but it's thinking--if there's a lot to sort through, the screen can stay black for a couple of minutes or more while it sorts things out. But then it will come up in the safe mode.
I've had to wait 5 minutes sometimes for it to get there.

Has it given you an error message? Just frozen or what? If it's black, let it stay that way for a while to see if it can work its way through.

On occassion though, the scroll will stop, the system will crash, freeze and/or you will get an error message. This will tell you what's wrong. Usually it will be a corrupt or missing system file that stops the loading of windows.

On W2K, at that poing, you have to use the management Recovery Console to get into the system. The recovery console has to be loaded after installing windows, it is not an automatic thing. In lieu of that if you run through startup disks with the repair opiton, it will get you to the same place.

If you know what file is missing, you can go to the cab files on the CD or HDD if you put them there, expand it to the right system folder and then the load should go through. If not, you may have to reinstall the program.

I think XP has an easier way to recover, but you may have to be inside windows to use it.

Once you get to the SafeMode, you can use the Tab key to scroll down, shift-Tab to scroll up, the spacebar to select. The tab key should move you across the screen to the focus (selection boxes) of each item. Then select it with the spacebar. And "enter/return" to open it.

Once in Windows, unless you have a USB mouse, PS2 mouse drivers are loaded in safemode for use in Windows. But if not, you can still use the Tab keys to manuver--with or without the mouse.

I hope it's just a long thinking problem and not a corrupt file.

Bob