220-802 · Question #654
A user recently installed a new video driver on a PC but upon boot Windows will not start. Which of the following is the BEST option to correct the issue?
The correct answer is D. Safe mode. Safe mode loads Windows with a minimal set of generic drivers, bypassing the newly installed faulty video driver so the system can start and the driver can be removed or rolled back.
Question
A user recently installed a new video driver on a PC but upon boot Windows will not start. Which of the following is the BEST option to correct the issue?
Options
- AAutomated system recovery
- BEmergency repair disks
- CFIXBOOT
- DSafe mode
How the community answered
(37 responses)- A3% (1)
- B3% (1)
- D95% (35)
Why each option
Safe mode loads Windows with a minimal set of generic drivers, bypassing the newly installed faulty video driver so the system can start and the driver can be removed or rolled back.
Automated System Recovery restores system configuration from a backup and is a more drastic measure than needed when the cause is a single known bad driver.
Emergency repair disks are associated with older Windows versions (NT/2000) and are not the standard modern tool for this type of driver-related issue.
FIXBOOT repairs the volume boot record and is used for boot sector corruption, not for issues caused by a bad device driver.
Safe mode intentionally skips third-party and recently installed device drivers, loading only the basic VGA driver instead of the problematic video driver. This allows Windows to start successfully so the technician can uninstall or roll back the bad driver through Device Manager. It is the most direct and least destructive path to resolving a driver-caused boot failure.
Concept tested: Using Safe Mode to recover from a bad driver install
Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-your-pc-in-safe-mode-in-windows-92c27cff-db89-8644-1ce4-b3e5e56fe234
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