Booting into Safe Mode in Win 8.1

[Blues&twos]

Hi again.


A rather frustrating problem, this one. My daughter is at Uni and her Acer Aspire V5 laptop is playing up:


1) Switch on laptop using the power button.
2) Acer Screen splash appears as normal.
3) Screen goes black, mouse pointer appears.
4) Doesn't go any further.


She has not got any removable media plugged in, in the CD drawer etc.
I hope that the appearance of the mouse pointer is a good sign in the circumstances.
She has been so far unable to boot into Safe Mode using F8 at power-up. The internet suggests that Win 8.1 boots too fast to be interrupted. Other solutions assume access to options once Windows is running.


Has anyone got any helpful advice? I'd like to know if the laptop will boot into Safe Mode or not.


Fortunately she has been sensible enough to back up all her important stuff elsewhere!


Thanks.

[Booglebox]

Hi OP, try this:

Power down laptop and start 3 times, immediately turning off as soon as ACER name displayed. On the 4th relaod do not turn it off, it wil go directly to the Acer Recovery Menu which will give you access to BIOS

[Fly-by-Wife]

I always found that if in doubt as to how to enter the BIOS, just hold down as many keys as possible at boot time until a keyboard error is triggered and gives you the option to enter the BIOS - usually an F1 to continue or F2 to enter BIOS, or similar.

FBW

[Blues&twos]

Thanks for the replies!
Booglebox wins the prize - worked a treat, she now has a fully functional laptop again, and is chuffed about it! Not sure, but I think it went into Windows recovery options rather than an Acer specific recovery. I will find out exactly what she did when I next speak to her and will post back here. I will also remember that bit of advice as I have Win 8.1 too. Cheers!

[Blues&twos]

Just in case anyone is interested (and I did say I would post again once I found out exactly what she'd done to get her laptop working again):

1) Powered up laptop using power button, waited until it booted as far as it will go (i.e. black screen with mouse pointer showing).
2) Switched off laptop by holding power button down until laptop shut down.
3) Repeated steps (1) and (2) three more times. On the third repeat - the fourth boot-up - Windows started and sorted itself out.

I have since passed on this potential solution to someone else who had a Win 8.1 laptop with identical symptoms. It solved his problem too.