in safe mode, it is like, what all you do, is safe. like you can run viruses, and stuff, but it will not affect your PC. you can access certain files, which you cannot access in the normal mode.
Code:
Safe mode is windows running pretty much by itself using generic drivers for only the most necessary hardware (Display adapter, sound , keyboard and mouse; network support if you choose it ) and none of the added software.
The whole idea is to give you an environment where you can still access windows if it is not what is messed up and something else is preventing you from booting to normal mode.
Although you could manually load drivers through the command prompt if you really wanted to and knew what to do and you can launch most programs too; the best thing is to use msconfig for the purpose it was designed.
While in safe mode, you go to msconfig and choose selective startup. Uncheck the Process System.ini (the drivers) Uncheck the Load system services , uncheck the load startup items.
Now you should be able to boot to windows (unless it is a win.ini entry causing you problems) normal mode but it will be almost identical to safe mode.
If this works, you add back one check mark and reboot. Continue until you find out which section causes the problem. Then boot to safe mode again, and go to the tab for that one (start up items for example) and uncheck everything. Reboot to confirm that it boots to windows, and you then continue adding one item at a time back until you have the problem. You now boot to safe mode, remove that check and continue (leaving that entry unchecked) . You now have "Diagnosed" the problem.
Say you found out it was your antivirus program. You would disable it so you can boot to windows, run an online scan and have an analyst check your hijackthis log and finally uninstall and reinstall it.
Say on the system.ini tab the entry "driver32" was the problem. Return the check so drivers will load and go to device manager and change suspect hardware (say your video card, usb devices, sound card and network card) to disabled in this profile. You can do it one item at a time, or all at once. Once you isoloate the problem you can try new drivers for the problem device or remove and replace it.
Or say you are trying to boot to windows after you played a game or changed your video resolution and you just get a black screen with a message signal out of range?
Well a boot to safe mode will allow you to change the resolution back or uninstall the driver for your video card and allow it to be redetected and reloaded when you reboot.
Safe mode is a very useful tool for the technician who is not under pressure to save time and just format and clean install; and when that fails to solve a problem it is useful to allow him to troubleshoot the hardware to diagnose the cause.