I just repaired this very model with this same problem. At first, not knowing that it had a SSD, I tested it with Maxtor Powertools and the drive failed. I assumed I'd have to replace the drive, reinstall the OS and go on about my day...but once I realized I was working with an SSD, I went back to square one. I couldn't get the computer to boot into any mode, normal, safe or last known good config so I wiped the drive and reinstalled the OS. I assume that the drive encountered some improper shutdown at some point and it messed up the OS files. This model had XP Home installed on it so I had to go thru the process of creating an XP bootable usb stick, but once that's done, the rest is easy.