Windows XP a Goner? First Aid for your Windows PC

Features
By Daniel Schuhmann
published

On Call: The Recovery Console

Ever since Windows 2000, Microsoft's Recovery Console has offered the option of reading and changing individual files on NTFS partitions. However, virus scans and quick, uncomplicated backup of large quantities of data are not options here. The reason is that only very few commands can be executed from the Recovery Console. (Fortunately, it is possible to switch services on and off using the Console.)

The Recovery Console is on the Windows XP installation CD and can be started from the CD directly after booting.

The Recovery Console is launched with the menu item R (Repair)

Selecting the Windows disk partition: in most cases, only the number 1 exists

First Aid: the HELP command displays all available commands

When nothing else works: with FIXBOOT...

...and FIXMBR, the boot sector and master boot record are recovered

Daniel Schuhmann
4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • agisvel
    Amazing
    Reply
  • vladtepes
    Many times booting from xp cd , choosing the repair R option and using chkdsk /r solves the problem
    Reply
  • number13
    there is program called winconsole.exe, make a bootable disk from your XP install disk that does all the necessary thing that you need a boot disk to do, great for saving data when you can't get the repair disk to do what you need
    Reply
  • System (XP SP3 Home Edition) repeatedly failed while trying to boot (blue screen momentarily displayed then it would loop and try to reboot again; I captured blue screen with a camera but it didn't help). Tried to boot from MS XP Home Edition SP2 install disk (note earlier SP version) and was able to go into repair section. Most options didn't work ... but ran CHKDSK and found one or more errors which evidently repaired them. I ran CHKDSK a second time and there were no detected errors. Rebooted the PC and it worked! Thanks!
    Reply