# Booting in safe mode on windows 8.1 on a Sony vaio



## AkaRai (Aug 4, 2006)

Hello,

Short version is in the subject. Now here's the long version. I'm on the damaged Sony VAIO laptop running on windows 8.1 with at least 100 different problems. Mostly pertaining to disappearing DLL files. That's not my current issue though, right now the problem is that I can't boots the system. It stuck on an endless loop. Please forgive any typing or grammatical errors as I'm communicating this through a phone. Basically several programs weren't loading and the system was crashing frequently, so I went to device manager to see if I could update any drivers. That said they were all up to date, which I knew not to be true as I hadn't use the laptop in probably a year. So I used the third-party software driver booster 2 and it updated 15 of my drivers. 

That seemed to take care of most of the problems, but after a restart the audio became weak garbled and distorted. So first I tried to roll back the driver but found I couldn't, so stupidly I downloaded a Pack of drivers for my audio device. Upon the next restart, it wouldn't start up and would stay in an endless loop restarting over and over. After googling The error on my phone, I found that the fix required entering safe mode and removing the driver. On attempting to do so, I found entering safe mode is nearly impossible on windows 8.1 on a Sony VAIO. First off hitting F8 does nothing on windows 8.1's boot, so I entered the bios menu and switched from you EFI to legacy boot, and that caused it to say there was no operating system. So I switched it back, and tried to access it from command prompt via the VAIO assist recovery menu. 

Seemingly because the command prompt opens in X rather than C, none of the commands I found seem to work. MS config does not work, bcedit does not work.

I've told you all I know, please help me restore functionality to this junk heap system.


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## AkaRai (Aug 4, 2006)

Oh, additionally I'm aware my profile information is badly out of date. I had to login through the phone though, so I hope you'll forgive that.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

The *F8* key in Windows 8.1 still works on a Sony Vaio: https://us.en.kb.sony.com/app/answe...e-when-you-cannot-access-the-operating-system.
You may have to press it several times during bootup. 
If you choose *Rescue and Recovery* from the *Assist *button you can restore your computer without harming your personal files.


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## AkaRai (Aug 4, 2006)

spunk.funk said:


> The *F8* key in Windows 8.1 still works on a Sony Vaio: https://us.en.kb.sony.com/app/answe...e-when-you-cannot-access-the-operating-system.
> You may have to press it several times during bootup.
> If you choose *Rescue and Recovery* from the *Assist *button you can restore your computer without harming your personal files.


 Thanks for the fast reply, but as I stated the BC edit method doesn't seem to work. First it wouldn't work because the partition I was operating in was X, so I typed in c: as the command, and I got the error message this system cannot find the path specified. So I tried it again without the quotation marks and then it told me BC and it is not recognized as an internal or external command operable program or batch file. 

If you're referring to the refresh option, when I try that it tells me the hard drive is locked and I need to unlock it before I can use it.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Get to the RE (Recovery Environment) Command Prompt. 
At command prompt (*x: sources*) type this exactly as written: 
*bcdedit |find “osdevice”* (Must inc *”* and the* |*), the *|* before *Find* is the Upper case *\* key) press enter. This will tell you what drive letter the OS is on.It may not be on the* C:* drive. 
Now use the returned as the drive letter for OS, for this example, assume *C: *or whatever drive letter is the os device.
At the *x sources* type: *chkdsk c: /r* press enter, 5 stages of check disk will run. It will test the HDD for errors. it may take a while.
You can also do this, be sure to change the drive letter to your OS drive letter, 



At the *X:\Sources* prompt, type: *bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup* and press enter, next:

Type:- *c:* and press enter

At the *C:\* prompt, type: *cd boot* and press enter

At the *C:\Boot* prompt, type: *attrib bcd -s -h -r* and press enter
. 
At the *C:\Boot* prompt, type: *ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old* and press enter 

At the *C:\Boot* prompt, type: *bootrec /rebuildbcd* and press enter

The Boot Configuration File will be rebuilt at this point. Once it finishes, type exit and press enter. Click the Restart button


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## AkaRai (Aug 4, 2006)

Unfortunately, I'm stuck at the first step. I don't know I'm typing in something wrong, or something. It just keeps returning " Bcedit is not recognized as an internal or Extertal command operable program or batch file."


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

*BC Edit* only works in the* RE* (REcovery Envirnoment) when you boot from a Windows Disc and get into _Command Prompt_ there. It does not work in any other Command Prompt.


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## AkaRai (Aug 4, 2006)

Well, this recovery console is accessed from a partition on the hard drive. So, that's why it didn't work I guess.

I ran chkdsk as instructed assuming c was the right drive, and it did work. The scan took like a day, but I stopped there. Should I try the rest of the instructions, or do you suggest something else?


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

The *RE *(Recovery Environment) as outlined in post *#5*, Is only accessible by booting from a Windows Disc. There you can choose *Command Prompt* and run the commands as suggested. 
If *Check Disk *took a day, then you had several Bad Sectors on your HDD and Check Disk tried to move the files to a good sector. The more bad sectors you have, the longer the scan. 
Now that you checked your HDD for errors, if you still can't boot into Windows, you can run *Rescue *and* Recovery* while booting from the *Assist *key. This will access the Recovery Partition where you can restore your computer to factory defaults.


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