Windows 8 - HELP!!!

[Valerie Truscinski]

I have a laptop that has Windows 8 installed on it that appears to have acquired a virus that AVG did not detect.  It made a duplicate user of the only user on the machine and would "loop" continuously starting and killing explorer.exe.  I tried to manually remove the "pseudo" user, and reboot.  Now I am completely locked out of the machine because when it boots to the login screen, and asks for the username and password, it tells me "The User Profile Services service failed the sign-in.  User profile cannot be loaded". I evidently didn't rid the computer of all of the information from the infected user profile.  So I cannot even log into the computer.  I cannot get into safe mode because the only way to set safe mode in Windows 8 is after you are logged in.  I have created a restore USB drive, but I'm assuming that the computer is set to boot to the HDD first.  AND of course, there is no way to get in and change what I would refer to as the BIOS settings to change the boot order on a Windows 8 machine either!  Does anyone have any suggestions for me?  There were no CD's that came with this machine, and there is no other Windows 8 machine in the building (I had to borrow a student's laptop to create the USB). HELP!!!

[Brian Norman]

Try this
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Booting Windows 8 In Safe Mode When PC Is Not Starting

This one is a little tricky, because it takes trial and error (and patience) to launch the Windows 8 ‘recovery mode’ when start up sequence is on going. What you need to do is, past the BIOS splash screen, hold down the Shift key and repeatedly hit the F8 key. Doing so should get you to the recovery mode, but it might take a few tries before you achieve that.

Once the Recovery screen is displayed, click the See advanced repair options button. In the next screen, hit the Troubleshoot button.

In the troubleshoot menu, click Advanced options, wherein lies Windows Startup Settings. Choose that.

The next screen will ask you to restart your PC, after which you’ll see the familiar Advanced Boot Option screen – the same one that’s been around since Windows XP – and you can choose Safe Mode here.

[Valerie Truscinski]

I've tried the shift-F8 sequence about 20 times with no luck...and that is not exaggerating.