need help booting into safe or normal mode without sight

Hello all,
My name is Lynn Williams. I am blind and use speech software on my Windows 7 laptop. I am having some problems with my laptop which is causing it to come up with the screen to choose safe or normal mode. Earlier, a sighted friend helped me with it but she is no longer here and I have no clue how to get this thing going. My speech will not start until I am actually in windows and will not load in safe mode. Can someone tell me how many times I should arrow down or hit enter or what exactly is on the screen when I shut it down with a hard boot and turn it back on? I know it has something to do with safe mode or normal mode but can't tell where to go from there. If nothing else, I suppose I could boot into safe mode then shut it down and see if it will restart normally. If that is the case, how would I go about doing that without being able to see it? Thanks for any help offered.


regards, Lynn Williams

Welcome GeorgiaLady.

If you could let us know the brand and model of your laptop top it would be helpful.
Do you feel comfortable with the keyboard? Is it equipped with Braille Characters?

Any tidbits of information you give us will help us solve your problem. I admire your willingness to post a question on this forum.

My user name is yodap

Update: I Just booted into safe mode by tapping the F8 key. The safe mode option was one click down on this computer. Yours may be different. So anything you can tell us would be helpful.

Hi Yodap. Thanks for replying. From what I recall, it is a Toshiba 500 C with satelite card. It has home premium 32 bit Windows 7on it. I have only had it since Christmas but have had a few issues wih it. The screen reader I use is called Jaws 11 for Windows, in case anyone is interested in looking at it. It is to be found at www.freedomscientific.com They have a 40 minute demo version that is ffree to download. No, my keyboard has no special keys. I just know my way around it quite well. I have been typing since I was 15 and I was sighted then so it's ben no problem for me to continue it affter losing my sight. If this could be better done over the phone and someone wantgs to contact me off list, I will either give you my # or get yu to give me yours. Thanks for any and all help. I HATE not having my laptop running.

Okay Lynn.

Try booting up and hit the down arrow eleven times. That is the "start windows normally" command on my computer. If for some reason that doesn't work, please post back.

Once you are in the normal Win7 environment we can try to find out what happened to cause this problem, if you like. Do you have access to the forum through another computer?

Good luck, yodap

Hi and Welcome to the forums.
I am Fire Cat.
Sounds like someone or something messed with msconfig, and changed the boot options in there.

Once you manage to boot into windows (or safe mode) type "msconfig" in the start search bar, without the quotes.
Msconfig is spelled M.S.C.O.N.F.I.G
In msconfig, go to the "boot" tab, and you should be able to change the boot options in there.

Good luck!
Fire Cat

Thank you Firecat and yodap,
Yes, I do have access to my desktop, which is what I am using here with Windows XP. I don't think it is the Msconfig settings as no one but myself has been on my laptop and I have not installed anything new in the last few days. On my last attempt, I arrowed down twice, hit enter and I did manage, I think to finally start in safe mode, because after trying that, I was able to hit start, right arrow to shut down and hit enterr, and it did shut down. It still is not booting up into a normal Windows environment though. So, I am going to try the 11 times down and see if that does anything for me. One thing that I did hear before it conked out on me after my friend left was that there was a conflict running jaws and it said something about the display settings. I can't recall exactly what it was because before I could review the message everything stopped. So, I am going to try this and then I may run the installation/repair disk for Jaws if I can get Windows to come up at all. My husband, who is sighted, will be in late tonight from being out of town so if at all possible, I'd like to have it up and running so he hasn't got to fool around with a computer tonight after driving for 9 hours. Shoot, I'd want to smack myself if I did that. LOL

Thanks and i will update with what, if any, progress I make.

Lynn

I have installed the trial version of jaws and it has caused some minor problems. My browser (Firefox) crashed and Windows has informed me that my graphics settings has reverted to Win7 basic mode. This graphics setting may be necessary to run the program. Do think this is the message you received?

Hi Yodap & Firecat, I will try to give you the Reader's Digest version of what has been a very stressful and frustrating day. Following Yodap's advice of arrowing down 11 times, I was able to start up in normal mode. What is strange is that the Windows will boot up if I go through it that way. However, if I shut down and try to restart, that same screen comes up again. Also, my Jaws program is claiming to have trouble finding the mirror something or rather file. I know that sounds very technical, but my mind is complete mush at the moment. To make a long story short, I never could get anywhere with either Windows or jaws, without having to do a hard boot then boot into safe mode then arrow down to the "normal" choice. My sighted friend even tried clicking on the run repair thing and it said it could not complete the repair nor could it complete a system restore. So, after contacting the company that tmakes my speech software and not getting anything resolved there, I took my laptop to a local guy that I use when all else fails. he said he would work on it but wanted me to leave it there. I did but I am leaving town on Sunday for a week and really wanted to take it with me. So, I made some inquiries here and there and they are telling me now that I can use the rescue disk that I createted when I first got my computer in order to restore the Windows back to operational settings. They *say* I won't lose any of my data but I'm not so sure about that and I really don't want to have to reinstall all this crap again! LOL So, my question, after all that is, are they right? Should I run the repair disk and if so, what option would I get hubby to click on? Unfortunately, jaws does not work when in safe mode or anything like this. Thanks again for all of your help. I will definitely be coming here for any help I may need with this stuff.

Regards, Lynn

I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT YES, THE Windows 7 basic display settings are best for Jaws to read it clearly and mine are set at that. In addition, I too have noticed that Firefox seems to crash a lot with this version if Jaws for some reason. I reported it but they tell me they haven't had any other reports of this. Yeah, sure. So, I either put up with it or use I.E., which doesn't have that issue but in my opinion, is not as good or as clean as Firefox. I appreciate your taking the time to download and install it to see if it had any effect. Pretty cool, huh? I use the real speak voices instead of the one that comes with it. He sounds o robotic. _

Thanks, Lynn

I am at a loss here Lynn.
I can't help but think the software is part of, if not all the problem. I uninstalled it (with Revo Uninstaller) and my computer is back to normal. I did not experience the same problems as you, however.

I would suggest uninstalling the program temporarily and seeing if that helps before doing a system repair job. The program comes with it's own uninstaller and it works well. If your computer gets back to normal after the uninstall then the problem source has been identified.

I think you should get it back from the guy and take it with you on your trip. We know you can boot into normal mode by navigating down 11 times and all runs well. It's a bit of a pain in the arse but it works. Why not enjoy it?

We can continue when you get back if you care to. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help given the time limitations but you can always seek answers here in the future.

Have a nice trip, yodap