Controller won't connect in safe mode

I had this same issue and was in total panic. I came across this post and luckily Jeremy had left an answer that was correct. I was at that desperate point that I’d try anything, i tried 25 different usb cables and nothing would work. I went and bought the genuine play station cable and sure as heck it worked.

"That's kind of a strange one. Here's what I would do...you don't actually have to boot it to safe mode to install the software. Just put the replacement hard drive in then start it up. It will prompt you to put the USB drive in, then you can install from there. See if that works.

It's possible that it's faulty software on the console but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like that.

Hope this helps."

My ps4 says it can pick up the updated file on my external hard drive and I've tried everything do I have to send it back to the manufacturers to see if they can help with the problem

Lot of charging cables are only output cables and does not provide input back to console when you press ps button. You need to buy a data cable which takes both input and output so that when you press PS button it register input and send it back to console. Hope this helps