Safe Mode after hardware damage?

[curvetheory]

A friend of mine spilled some Crown Royal on another friends computer. Undetermined how much or where on the laptop. The victim claims that he can only run the computer on safe mode, but upon investigation, it appears he has full use of the functions (internet, itunes, word, etc.). My questions:
- Can liquid hardware damage force the computer to run in safe mode?
- Can you still do all of these things in safe mode?
- Can safe mode be modified to appear to be working normally?
- Finally, is this guy BSing us?

Thanks for your help!

 

[frozenlead]

I suppose it's possible that malfunctioning hardware can cause windows to only boot properly in safe mode. I've never seen it before, but in theory, it works out.

You can do some things in safe mode, but it lacks all-too-important drivers and services to do heavy tasking things and use of more specialized hardware other than the CPU. (like the graphics card).

I don't recommend you use safe mode as a main OS. At all. Safe mode is a troubleshooting/diagnostic tool. It is not meant for use for primary OS features.

Who knows? Why don't you ask him? Or just get the machine?

 

[curvetheory]

Thanks for the input. And yes, those last comments are the plan. I just wanted to familiarize myself with the problem before I made any big assumptions.