The PC only starts in Safe Mode following my need to fix the boot drive automatically?
The PC only starts in Safe Mode following my need to fix the boot drive automatically?
I changed a non-boot drive and then had to fix the boot drive. Now it only starts in safe mode and remains there after shutdown. This is running Windows 11 on an Asus Z370 board. They say a normal reboot gets it out of safe mode, but it doesn’t. I’m wondering if msconfig is set to restart in safe mode. There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual, but I think the auto repair might have changed it so it always goes back to safe mode. If it isn’t in msconfig, are there other ways to force a safe mode reboot?
There is a checkbox in msconfig indicating Safe Mode boot; you should open msconfig and verify the standard boot options. I'm unsure why replacing a non-boot or non-system drive also necessitated repairing the boot drive. How was the boot drive repaired? Which drive was replaced and what was present on it? It's likely that damage or movement inside the case during the replacement caused only Safe Mode to appear. Please check everything in the case, making sure all components are securely installed, fully seated, and all cables are correctly connected at both ends.
I found it odd that this occurred. Win11 carried out the auto repair and verified safe mode before starting. There was an issue with the SATA bus that delayed booting by thirty minutes. I disconnected the SATA cables one at a time from four drives on the SATA bus while power was off, trying to identify the faulty one. I expected it to start immediately once I removed the bad drive, but it didn’t. I held the power button down for four seconds to power it off, and also turned off the power supply before disconnecting the cables. I was being very careful.
When everything failed, I accessed the BIOS, disabled the SATA bus, and it reactivated, progressing through the auto repair and entering safe mode. It seems shutting down during boot multiple times caused the system to detect a problematic driver or file, prompting msconfig to switch to safe mode. Three of the SATA drives were operating in RAID 0 mode, and one failed. I had to reset the RAID settings in the BIOS to allow booting, but disconnecting them one by one didn’t resolve the issue on the SATA bus—lesson learned the hard way.
It appears the SATA bus was disrupting the boot process, making it slow and forcing repeated shutdowns during boot, which triggered the repair mode. Thanks for the explanation; now I realize we should check the BIOS for a failed RAID array, as it could affect any other drives on the SATA bus. I managed to get it to boot before opening the case after waiting 30 minutes, but even the non-RAID drive didn’t appear once I rebooted. Truly strange.