Modes: What's the best one? Safe Mode, Normal mode or USB boot

I want to know what the pros think about this.

 

I have been told for ever that the best way to get rid of malware is to use versions of Safe Mode.  Then I heard an expert say that real virus technicians use normal mode because of the nature of some malware.  I really like the Norton USB Boot drive but it hasn't been as successful in getting malware off of computers as installing Norton on the actual machine.

 

Which is the way that you guys like to get malware off of peoples machines?