How to use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

How to install the Recovery Console
You can install the Recovery Console on your computer to make it available if you cannot restart Windows. You can then select the Recovery Console option from the list of available operating systems during startup. Install the Recovery Console on important servers and on the workstations of IT personnel. This article describes how to install the Recovery Console to your Microsoft Windows XP-based computer. To install the Recovery Console, you must be logged on as an administrator.

Although you can run the Recovery Console by starting directly from the Windows XP CD, it is generally more convenient to set it up as a startup option on your startup menu. To run the Recover Console directly from the CD, see the "How to use the Recovery Console" section.

To install the Recovery Console, follow these steps:
1. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons where d is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive.
4. A Windows Setup Dialog Box appears. The Windows Setup Dialog Box describes the Recovery Console option. To confirm the installation, click Yes.
5. Restart the computer. The next time that you start your computer, "Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" appears on the startup menu.
Alternatively, you can use a Universal Naming Convention (UNC)-established connection to install the Recovery Console from a network share point.

Note: You may receive an error message that is similar the following:
Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.

How to use the Recovery Console
You can enable and disable services, format drives, read and write data on a local drive (including drives that are formatted to use the NTFS file system), and perform many other administrative tasks. The Recovery Console is particularly useful if you have to repair your computer by copying a file from a disk or CD-ROM to your hard disk, or if you have to reconfigure a service that is preventing your computer from starting correctly.

If you cannot start your computer, you can run the Recovery Console from the Microsoft Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM. This article describes how to perform this task.

After Windows XP is installed on your computer, to start the computer and use the Recovery Console you require the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM.

To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, follow these steps:
1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.

Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console.
4. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to diagnose and repair your Windows XP installation.

For a list of commands that are available in Recovery Console, type recovery console commands or help at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

For information about a specific command, type help commandname at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
6. To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

How to use the Recovery Console command prompt
When you use the Recovery Console, you are working at a special command prompt instead of the ordinary Windows command prompt. The Recovery Console has its own command interpreter. To enter this command interpreter, you are prompted by Recovery Console to type the local Administrator password.

When the Recovery Console starts, you can press F6 to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver, in case you need such a driver to access the hard disk. This prompt works the same as it does during installation of the operating system.

The Recovery Console takes several seconds to start. When the Recovery Console menu appears, a numbered list of the Windows installations on the computer appears. (Generally, only c:\Windows exists.) Press a number before you press ENTER, even when only one entry appears. If you press ENTER without selecting a number, the computer restarts and begins the process again.

When you see the prompt for %SystemRoot% (generally C:\Windows), you can start using the available commands for the Recovery Console.