BSOD Update with a Twist

Today I came across a friend with a computer experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) caused by the CrowdStrike update on Friday. He and I are both computer experts in that we work solving computer problems on a daily basis. We both knew the steps to deal with the problem once we got the computer to boot in safe mode. The trick was figuring out how to get it up in safe mode.

The computer in question had two ports to connect to monitors but only had a single monitor. One port had an HDMI interface while the other had a DisplayPort interface. They are slightly different but have somewhat similar cables. As luck would have it, the monitor for the computer only had a DisplayPort cable and so that is what the computer used. Unbeknownst to us, when Windows tries to boot in safe mode, it cannot talk to the DisplayPort and has to use the HDMI one.

The way to recognize this is that the computer will reboot twice and on the third time nothing will be displayed. Hitting the return key will cause the computer to reboot and try to do 3 more reboots before going dark again. My friend and I tried a number of ways to force the machine booting into safe mode but that only brought the blank screen.

On a whim, I suggested we remove the DisplayPort cable and try to boot using an HDMI monitor. This means we had to grab a TV from another room and bring it into the same room as the computer. We also had to completely unplug the DisplayPort cable from the computer and connect the HDMI cable. Once we did that, we went through the required three reboots and on the third time got the computer running in safe mode. We deleted the offending file and rebooted the computer. It worked well. Furthermore we just unplugged the HDMI cable and re-inserted the Display-Port cable. We didn't have to shut down the machine or change any hardware settings. The original display worked fine and we could use the computer.

If you find yourself getting to the third reboot and a blank screen, you may just need to try an HDMI cable instead of a DisplayPort one. My hope is that this advice helps someone out there still experiencing trouble.