Cannot start mysqld_safe to reset root password
mysqld_safe is the command to start the mysql engine. It's not supposed to do or show anything after the line saying that it's started mysql. Once you've run mysqld_safe, the next step is to run mysql. Because you started mysqld with --skip-grant-tables you won't need to specify a username or password.
You can then give the command to reset root's password. For instructions on how to set a password, see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/set-password.html .