Win XP Pro safe mode failure

[Lastlook]

Have Pentium4 desktop. Win XP Pro SP2 installed.  Spybot, Microsoft Spyware Webroot Spysweeper 4.5.9.709, Norton System works and personal firewall 2005 updated today. \
Everything seems to be working correctly, with no problems or error messages present.   I'm having a small problem with a usb connection to my UPS and thought I'd try isolating it in safe mode.  During boot up pressing the F8 key gets me into the screen to select start up mode.  Highlighting Safe Mode and pressing enter results in a screen comming up stating "We apoligize but win did not start sucessfully in safe mode etc. etc.  I can't get into safe mode.  Normal start up works OK.
  Any ideas?

[lordvader781]

You can try the msconfig way.  Click start, then run.  Type "msconfig" (no quotes).  After hitting OK, click the boot.ini tab.  Then select the box that says "/safeboot."  If this works, don't forget to uncheck the box after your finished in safe mode or it will restart in safe mode again the next time you restart.  Hope this helps.