How to get to Safe Mode on Atlas Micro

[Katie Barkley]

I have a AS 9800 Atlas Micro PC. (This is a 1.3 mhz Win98SE system). I need to access Safe Mode. Microsoft's paid support has had me try MANY things to no avail.

I have tried F8 holding down; I have tried F8 continuously clicking; I have tried F5; I have tried just the Control key, both holding and clicking. We have tried all of these from different points.

Any ideas since Atlas Micro is out of business?

What happens when you do all that stuff? Does it boot straight to Windows, or does it boot at all?

If it doesn't boot, I'd suspect you might have a HDD problem. Do you know what model HDD it is?

[Katie Barkley]

The PC boots normally into windows. Everything is fine on the PC except that since I installed DSL a week ago, my PC freezes after about 1-4 minutes once I am downloading or surfing. After about 30 seconds, the PC reboots itself with no error messages. If I go back to dialup, no problem. Neither Bellsouth nor Microsoft can figure it out. So we thought we'd try safe mode since just going into can often fix things. Alas, no way into safe mode!

Sorry I failed to mention what happens when rebooting.

I guess we're just gonna have to force it then.

When in Windows, go into Folder Options and disable hiding of Hidden/System files. After that, go into My Computer and on the C drive, you should see a file called 'MSDOS.SYS'. Right-click it and uncheck the 'Read-Only' attribute. Right-click it again and choose 'Open with' and choose Notepad. Be sure to uncheck the box that says 'Always open with . . .'.
Now, you should see a line that says 'BootSafe=x', change that to a '1' and save the file. Reboot the PC and it should start in Safe Mode. To keep it from booting into Safe Mode again, just change that '1' to a '0'. you can change in Safe Mode pretty much the same way as in Windows.

EDIT - Almost forgot, if you see a line in the MSDOS.SYS file that says 'BootKeys=0', change the '0' to a '1' and the keys will work again.