I can't even enter safe mode anymore...

[theguy1991]

I hate Windows 8. I hate it so much. I like that its faster and I'm used to the new interface, but it freezes after it installs updates every single time. It'll freeze at the welcome screen, it'll freeze on a black screen, now its freezing at a black screen with a blinking underscore and I can't even enter safe mode no matter how many times I hit F8 or Shift + F8. I've been dealing with this ever since I made the mistake of upgrading from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 8.1. The only solution I've found is doing system restore, but I can't even do that now because I can't enter safe mode. I want to downgrade to Windows 7, but all I have is an "upgrade version" disk. So I'll probably have to dish out $80 to get out of this hole.

Anyone have any advice?

 

[jonespwns]

Are you sure your problems are not arising from a bad hard disk? If you have a spare computer around with disk drive scanning software, try running a scan and see if it finds any bad sectors. You could also try running a dskchk if you can find a way to do so.

 

[Quixit]

To enter safe mode on a Windows 8 on a machine with eUFI you need to hold shift while clicking on "Restart". This will bring you to a blue menu that contains a bunch of recovery options including "restart in safe mode". This same screen will also show up if you computer fails to boot properly 2-3 (can't remember which) times in a row.

In your situation I'd just reinstall. All Windows 8 disks, even if they're marked upgrade, are capable for installing a fresh copy of the OS.

 

[theguy1991]

To enter safe mode on a Windows 8 on a machine with eUFI you need to hold shift while clicking on "Restart". This will bring you to a blue menu that contains a bunch of recovery options including "restart in safe mode". This same screen will also show up if you computer fails to boot properly 2-3 (can't remember which) times in a row.

In your situation I'd just reinstall. All Windows 8 disks, even if they're marked upgrade, are capable for installing a fresh copy of the OS.

I also forgot to mention that I did a system refresh, the one the lets you keep all your files but uninstalls all applications. That worked fine until I had to install updates and I got stuck with it freezing again. Also I have an upgrade version disk of Windows 7, not 8. I upgraded to 8 before by downloading it online. When you say hold shift while clicking restart, you mean doing that inside Windows 8? That's my problem, windows 8 isn't even loading anymore. I used to just tap F8 over and over and that would take me into options to get me into safe mode but I can't do that anymore for some reason.