Solved Very bad Driver_Power_State_Failure BSoD. No Safe Mode.

I did something very stupid. I used Driver Booster by iObit. Never had any problems with it before, but something bad was bound to happen so I take full responsibility for what's happening.

These were chipset level drivers which is why my Driver_Power_State_Failure (DPSF) is so bad I guess, others seem to at least be able to boot into Windows.

Driver Booster makes a small system backup (thank god) every time drivers are updated. Normally I would boot into Windows and revert the changes, but I can't get past the login screen. After I type my password and press enter the screen freezes and I eventually get BSoD. In that case I would use Safe Mode, but none of the repair options from the Windows 8.1 boot screen work, they don't initialize before I get BSoD.

This is all in UEFI mode. When I change to Legacy mode, I'm not able to boot into Windows 8.1 for some reason. Legacy mode starts with Network Boot and then tries the Optical Drive even though my SSD is first in booting priority. I'm hoping to access Safe Mode through Legacy boot.

I'm of course keeping a reinstall of Windows 8.1 as the ultimate solution, but I have a lot of important files and programs on the laptop. I have a backup that's somewhat recent on an external drive, but my hope is to access the backup created by Driver Booster and revert back to before I installed those drivers.

My question is if I can somehow force Safe Mode or access the Driver Booster backup manually and revert to it. I have an Acer Aspire V3-772g with Windows 8.1 (64-bit), any help is greatly appreciated.

Daniel

Solution

Wow, it's been a long day of troubleshooting but I've learnt a lot (like don't use damn third party driver updating software).

I'm gonna write out how I solved it here in the hope that it might be useful to someone some day.

1. My problem was so bad that the Windows troubleshooting screen wouldn't work properly. I couldn't log in to Windows but I couldn't launch safe mode or command prompt either. I had reformatted my old Windows 8 install USB so I had to make a new one. Finding a Windows 8 ISO shouldn't be too hard. I then used Rufus to make a bootable USB. If you have UEFI boot like me, I'd recommend choosing GPT partition for UEFI to make a bootable USB, otherwise you won't boot (I made that mistake). For legacy boot the other options should work fine. The info you need is here < http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html >

2. The point with making a bootable USB is to access the repair functions. Boot from your USB (function keys differ from manufacturer, you might have to change boot order in BIOS). Choose your language and click next. Instead of clicking "Install" on the next screen, click "Repair your computer".

3. Here comes the good part, and I'm very happy I stumbled upon this.There is no Safe Mode option in our Windows 8 USB, but with this technique we can access it. Go all the way to the advanced troubleshooting where you can open a command prompt.

Type
C:
and press enter to access your main drive.
Now type
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
and press enter

This will allow us to access the old troubleshooting menu. Restart your computer (not from the USB but from your main drive) and hold F8 upon start. This should give you the classic black screen with white text where you can select Safe Mode. If you want to get the standard troubleshooting menu back, use
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard
in command prompt.

Credits go to "Aidan" in the comment section of this page < 5 Ways To Boot Into Safe Mode In Windows 8.1 >.

"I believe it should actually be
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
And
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard
to get back to the usual Windows 8 tile recovery menu."

4. Now that you're booted into Windows, you can access your System Restore point, which is what I did. NOTE: System Restore didn't work from the USB for me, which is why I had to go through all these steps. If you don't have a restore point, there are a few different methods you can use to recover old drivers now that you're booted into Safe Mode.

Sorry for this very long post, but it's better to be thorough than to leave details out. Remember, don't use third party driver updating software, make regular backups and always have a copy of your current Windows installation at hand, and you can save yourself a lot of time and trouble, unlike me today!

Well done fixing this problem.
Unfortunately I was quiet busy today so couldn't help.
Also, you've experienced pretty much the worsed reason why you should only install drivers from the manufacturer with laptops.

Thank you The problem is that the drivers on Acer's page for my laptop are pretty outdated, and getting drivers from every single manufacturer (Qualcomm, Realtek, Intel, Elantech etc.) is pretty tedious and not always possible.

I only use Windows Device Manager now, but it never seems to find any updates. How are important drivers usually delivered, through Windows Update?

My drivers are also pretty old, from around the year I bought my laptop. Never had a problem with the via my manufacturer provided drivers.
Some are sometimes via Windows Update delivered. I had a few a while back ago, but the best and easiest way is via your manufacturer manually.

I will keep that in mind. I guess my obsession with always having the latest updates is what gets me in trouble most of the time I will give the updates a "testing period" in the future before I install them, like I'm currently doing with Windows 10. I will probably give it at least a month before I install it.