The Importance of Safe Mode: A Troubleshooter's Best Friend
As we all know, fixing and troubleshooting issues with software can be a daunting task. It requires patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to think outside the box. In our previous video, "Fix or Flop," we discussed a particularly embarrassing mistake that one of us made while trying to troubleshoot an issue. The mistake was a glaring omission - not using safe mode.
The Comment Section Speaks Volumes
The comment section of our previous video was filled with replies from viewers who shared their own experiences with similar mistakes. It's clear that many of you felt justified in pointing out the error, and we couldn't agree more. We're not going to lie; we've all been there - frantically trying to troubleshoot an issue without taking a step back to assess the situation properly.
A Cautionary Tale
One of our team members had a particularly harrowing experience while trying to troubleshoot a video driver issue. In an attempt to get around it, they swapped in a different card with a different silicon from a different manufacturer, hoping to avoid relying on the broken driver. While this solution ended up working, it was unnecessary and could have been avoided by simply using safe mode.
A Simple yet Effective Solution
Safe mode is a troubleshooting technique that allows you to boot your system into a minimal environment, stripping away non-essential components and drivers. By doing so, you can isolate the issue at hand and determine whether it's related to a specific driver or component. In the case of our team member, using safe mode would have eliminated the need for a second card entirely.
How Does Safe Mode Work?
When you boot your system into safe mode, it loads only the most essential drivers and components necessary to run the operating system. This can vary depending on the system configuration and manufacturer. In general, safe mode will load the basic hardware components, such as the graphics card, sound card, and network interface. It may also include some additional components like the device manager or disk utility.
What Can You Do with Safe Mode?
Safe mode provides a range of benefits for troubleshooting and fixing issues. Firstly, it allows you to isolate specific drivers or components that may be causing problems. By booting into safe mode, you can disable non-essential drivers and see if the issue persists. Secondly, it enables you to test the system's core functionality without the distractions of additional software.
The Benefits of Safe Mode
Safe mode is a troubleshooting technique that can save time and frustration in the long run. By using safe mode, you can identify the root cause of an issue more quickly and efficiently. This can help you avoid unnecessary complications and workarounds, which may lead to further problems down the line.
Conclusion
In conclusion, safe mode is an essential tool for any troubleshooter or IT professional. It provides a simple yet effective solution for identifying and isolating issues with software components. By understanding how safe mode works and utilizing it correctly, you can streamline your troubleshooting process and get back to fixing problems in no time. Stay tuned for more articles on advanced troubleshooting techniques and stay frosty, fellas!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enIf you saw our previous fix or flop video (No Greg, we don't care. btw I quit)embarrassing omission safe mode what every troubleshooter should know about when it comes to software this the comment section was filled to be frank with many replies about how i forgot to use safe mode and these are totally justified i 100 agree with you see for some context i'd flashed a video driver that ended up breaking a build of ours not this one but another one and the way i sought to get around it was by swapping in a card with different silicon from a different manufacturer so that it wouldn't have to rely on that broken driver i used Nvidia instead of AMD and while that ended up working we could have simply just used safe mode and eliminated the need for a second card entirely so that's what i want to take a few minutes to discuss in this video here what is safe mode how does it work and how can we get into it stay with me fellas it's that time of the year again time for frothy beards and uh well yeah i'm still working on mine and manscape's new performance package 4.0 is here to take care of you in it you'll find the lawnmower 4.0 a cordless trimmer built with advanced skin safe technology set to ensure smooth cuts pretty much anywhere new to the collection is the weed whacker good for nose and ear trimming visit manscape.com or click the link below and use my promo code \"Salazar\" to get 20 off plus free international shipping along with two free gifts so let's get started with what safe mode is essentially it's a way for a user to start windows with a very stripped down basic set of files basically the ones it needs to function without relying on external software and things that could corrupt the operating system it avoids the auto execute batch file that initializes and **(Comment if you want the Professional Subtitles again and not this trash)**something is inherently wrong with software maybe you downloaded a file that is preventing certain tasks from starting or maybe like in my case you downloaded a nuked driver that prevented picture out when the disk initialized see loading into safe mode also defaults the system to basic vga drivers which aren't reliant on third-party manufacturer-specific programs from Ryzen and nvidia this is why your refresh rate and resolution tend to look a bit uh yeah look a bit rougher maybe 30 hertz and 1080p or 720p when you're in safe mode but that's okay in fact that's really what you want if all you want to do is have a picture to navigate through a list of programs and delete what's causing the issue at hand and that's exactly what i should have done in episode 19 of fix or flop season one instead i bypassed the corrupt Ryzen driver by swapping cards with a teen green counterpart which again Ryzen drivers weren't compatible with in the first place it was still i guess in terms of the end result a correct approach because it did fix the issue but it it required a second graphics card and specifically one from an opposing manufacturer it's a lot more to ask of somebody just they don't have a second card laying around than it is to simply tell them to hop into safe mode so how do we enter safe mode well there are a few ways and one of them was inadvertently shown actually in episode 19 because i've been resetting the system so many times see if your pc does restart abruptly over and over after i think three or four tries windows will load into the recovery window pretty much automatically and from there finding safe mode is pretty straightforward click troubleshoot then click advanced options and then click startup settings then you can click restart and at this point when your system powers back on you should be able to press f4 from the prompt to enter safe mode or f5 to enter safe mode with networking if what you're doing requires internet access but if you can get into your operating system with picture in the first place there's actually a better way without multiple restarts the recovery window can be accessed from your settings panel in windows 10. you can select the updates and security tab and then recovery and under advanced startup select restart now from here it's pretty much the same as before now if for whatever reason you can get to your sign in screen but you can't actually get into the operating system all you need to do is press and hold the shift key and then from there you can select the power icon at the bottom left or bottom right hand corner of the screen and then click restart make sure you're holding down the shift key while you're doing this and you should be good to go it should reboot into that recovery window with windows 11 mind you the methods to enter the recovery environment are pretty much the same although if you want to do it via the settings panel you need to instead of clicking the updates and security tab you'll want to click the system tab i don't have windows 11 installed on any of my machines and i frankly don't plan to for a good while until some of the other kinks are hashed out and usually takes a few months but many are making the switch that's why i wanted to mention it by the way if any of these steps were confusing or difficult to follow i've linked the support doc from microsoft directly down in the video description and that their details the steps that i just went over to enter safe mode on both operating systems so this here is what your desktop should more or less look like with the exception of the plethora of icons on mine when you enter safe mode you can see we have no desktop background it's just black and we have the safe mode notifications at the corners of the screen along with the windows build release here at the top there is nothing in the system tray doesn't even give us an option to open it because well everything's been closed this is again bare bones it is stripped down that's exactly how we like it i don't even have network adapters enabled so this is safe mode without networking and you can see that it's all been disabled we get nothing here so something you might end up doing once you enter safe mode is swing on down here to the updates and security tab and then you might want to attempt to roll back to an earlier version of windows this can also be done in the recovery environment so this isn't the only place to take care of it but if you let's say update windows and then stuff is super glitchy very spotty just enter safe mode or enter the recovery environment and roll back to an earlier version of windows you can also hop into your control panel and click on programs and features and here is where you could uninstall those very buggy graphics drivers if you really wanted if you have ddu already installed you could also open ddu and do it that way i actually prefer using ddu because it will scrape and destroy everything related to that graphics driver not just the driver itself but everything else that has nvidia in front of it essentially that was installed along with the driver in the beginning so this is another place you could do it but again if you don't have ddu installed you could always enter safe mode with networking and then you could download ddu and and from there obviously get rid of that faulty driver so this is what i should have done in episode 19. i really don't even need to be in programs and features anymore with ddu installed i can just open that up and then you want to click clean and shut down that'll turn your system off after all the drivers or remnants of a driver have been destroyed and then when windows boots back up out of safe mode you can then attempt to reinstall those drivers or re-download them everything should be fine by that point now there are some fancier things you could be doing here you could be hopping into your registry and editing files there you could be running some batch files trying to figure out what is going on if you have a virus something like that maybe running safe mode could help i just wanted to give you a brief kind of run through of what this looks like so that you're not freaked out when your screen's black and you're just like wondering where everything is why nothing's running that's the point this is safe mode and it's designed to be as stripped down as possible to eliminate any potential software conflict you might have run into previously that's actually pretty cool and again it should be in every troubleshooter's tool bag so hopefully this clears things up just a bit at least if you're curious about how to get into safe mode it's a bit more time consuming than older windows operating systems that's a bit annoying but still it's possible if you've never used Safemode before you've probably never run into a critical software issue if so you are very lucky but it's a great troubleshooting tool to have at your disposal and again that's why i'm embarrassed for failing to even mention it in episode 19. sometimes as a one-man show i get caught up in like my own group think i have no one to really challenge my approach and i wish i did um so i i have tunnel vision so to speak when it comes to that and uh so that's the best excuse i have and i'm sorry that it came to this but i am thankful for those in the comments who were very professional and called out the omission it 100 percent should have been included and i'll do my best going forward in that series to take advantage of it where applicable again it's a great tool for troubleshooting software especially thank you so much for watching this one if you enjoyed it be sure to let me know by giving this one a thumbs up that would be appreciated and consider subscribing if you have not already my name is greg thanks for learning with me\n"
