Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows XP Professional

If any of you have met Cleve you will understand what I mean when I say he is one of the most colorful persons I have met. Keep up the good work Cleve ! Will Hawkins

I received a request from one of our System Builders, Chris Peacock, from Australia, to present a tip on using the Recovery Console in the Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional operating system. So, here you are everyone. And, thank you, Chris! This is absolutely one of the most worthwhile consoles to install onto your system.

When I train on the Recovery Console, I always ask the question: "When can we use an MS-DOS®, Windows 98 Second Edition, or Windows Millennium Edition boot disk to boot to a Windows XP Professional installation using the NTFS file system?" The answer is: You can never use an MS-DOS anything to gain access to any resources on an installation using the NTFS file system, because MS-DOS cannot see anything on the NTFS file system.

So three cheers for the Recovery Console! Without it—and with Microsoft Windows NT® Workstation operating system version 4.0, we were without it—you were somewhat crippled (That’s an understatement!).

Tip: Some of you may say, legitimately, that we still have Safe Mode. Yep, you’re right. That is true. But there are some advantages of using the Recovery Console over Safe Mode. The biggest advantage of the Recovery Console over Safe Mode, for all of us, is that it works even when your Windows system files are corrupted. You can perform any of the following tasks using the Recovery Console:

• Use, copy, rename, or replace the Windows system files and folders.
• Enable or disable services or devices, with the changes taking effect the next time that you start Windows.
• Repair the file system boot sector and the Master Boot Record. (This is a big one for System Builders!)
• Rebuild or repair the boot menu.
• Create and format drives.

I really think that you should install the Recovery Console on every system that you build and ship to your customers.

To install the Recovery Console:

1. With Windows XP Professional installed on the system, insert the Windows XP Professional CD into the CD drive and click Start and Run.

2. Browse the CD, navigate to the \i386 folder, and double-click Winnt32.exe.

Tip: When you are using the 64-bit platform, you will navigate to the \ia64 folder instead of the \i386 folder. The rest of the command is exactly the same for both platforms.

3. Place your cursor at the end of the line X:\i386\winnt32.exe, press the SPACEBAR, type /cmdcons, and click OK.

4. The Windows Setup message states that you can install the Recovery Console. If the Recovery Console won’t start from the computer’s hard disk, then you can start it from the Windows Setup CD. The approximate size of space required is 7 MB.

Click Yes, and you will see the Copying Installation Files page. This indicates that the Recovery Console is being installed, right before your very eyes!

5. Once the installation of the Recovery Console is complete, you will see a message that states that the Recovery Console has been successfully installed. It also explains how to gain access to the Recovery Console.

Click OK.

If you choose not to install the Recovery Console, you do have the option to run the Recovery Console directly from CD.

To run the Recovery Console from CD:

1. Place the Windows XP Professional CD into the CD-ROM drive, and reboot or restart the computer.

2. When you are presented with the message that says "Press any key to boot from CD," press ENTER and allow the setup file to load.

3. When you see the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press R for Recovery.

4. Choose which installation to repair, using the number in front of the installation. You will be presented with the path to the boot partition, which holds the installation files. For Windows XP, the path will be C:\Windows.

5. Type the password for the local Administrator for this computer.

To use the Recovery Console to start the computer after you have installed it:

1. Restart the system.

2. When you are presented with the Startup or Operating System Selection menu, press the DOWN ARROW key to select the Recovery Console and press ENTER.

3. Choose the number that represents the installation that you want to repair. (As long as you are not dual-booting this system, you should have a single installation of the Windows XP Professional operating system.) You are presented with the path to the boot partition, where the installation files reside. On a Windows XP Professional system, you will see: C:\Windows.

Press 1 and press ENTER.

4. Type the case-sensitive password for the local Administrator. (You will have three chances to get it right. If you don’t get it right, the computer will automatically reboot.)

5. Once you have typed the password, press ENTER. A command prompt is displayed: C:\Windows.

Tip: To see the commands that are available to you, type Help and press ENTER. Once the commands are displayed, if you need to get help for a command, type that command, press the SPACEBAR, type /?, and press ENTER. For example, if you want to see what Listsvc does, type Listsvc /? and press ENTER.

After logging on to the Recovery Console, you can access files only in the following locations:

• The root directory of any volume.

• The %SystemRoot% folder and subfolders of the selected Windows XP installation. For Windows XP Professional, this would be C:\Windows.

• The Recovery Console Cmdcons folder and any subfolders—that is, if you installed the Recovery Console as a startup option.

• The files and folders on removable disks including floppy disks, CDs, and Zip disks.

Think about this for a minute! The Recovery Console is a very powerful tool. In the wrong hands and if used improperly, your files are jeopardized. So, if the Recovery Console were to allow unlimited access to files and folders on your hard disk, it would pose a serious security hole. This would be of utmost importance to systems running Windows XP Home Edition. Why? Because the Administrator password is blank. Microsoft needed to help you by preventing unauthorized access. Therefore, the Recovery Console imposes the following limits on your actions when you log on:

• If you try to access folders other than those described in the previous list, you will receive an "access denied" message. You cannot read from or write to the following folders: Program Files, Documents And Settings, and disks or folders containing other Windows installations. These restrictions apply to both NTFS and FAT32 volumes.

• Write access to removable disks is disabled—period. This prevents you from copying files to floppy disks and other removable media. If you try to copy a file to a removable disk, you receive an "access denied" message.

• You cannot change the local Administrator account password from the Recovery Console. If you use Windows XP Home Edition, just try to add a password to the local Administrator account!

• No text editing tools are available in the Recovery Console.

Here is the list of commands and what they can do for you:

Attrib	Sets or clears attributes (Read Only, Hidden, System) for a single file or folder.
Batch	Executes commands from a text file.
Bootcfg	Automatically scans all local disks for Windows installations, and configures and repairs the entries in the operating system menu (the Boot.ini file).
Cd or Chdir	Changes folders
Chkdsk	Checks and, if needed, repairs or recovers a drive. It marks bad sectors and recovers readable information. This command requires that the Autochk.exe command be located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder or on the Windows CD.
Cls	Clears the screen.
Copy	Copies a file.
Del or Delete	Deletes a single file.
Dir	Displays the folder contents and attributes for all files in the specified folder, including hidden and system files.
Disable	Disables a service or driver.
Diskpart	Manages the partitions on basic disk volumes. Please note that this command is not the same as the one available at a normal command prompt. Never use this command with dynamic disks.
Enable	Enables a service or driver.
Exit	Closes the Recovery Console and restarts the computer.
Expand	Extracts a file from a compressed (.cab) file on a local disk or removable media such as the Windows CD.
Fixboot	Writes a new partition boot sector onto the partition that you specify.
Fixmbr	Repairs the Master Boot Record of the specified disk. This is usually the system partition that holds the boot files for the system. It formats a primary partition, volume, or logical drive using the file system you specify.
Help	Displays a list of available commands in the Recovery Console.
Listsvc	Lists all available services and drivers and their current start types.
Logon 2000	Lists all detected installations of the Microsoft Windows and Windows NT® operating systems, and allows you to choose which installation you want to log on to. Remember, if you type an incorrect password three times, the system automatically restarts.
Map	Lists drive letters, file system types, partition sizes, and mappings to physical devices. It is intended for use with basic disks only and may return inaccurate information when used with dynamic disks.
Md or Mkdir	Creates a new folder or subfolder in the specified location.
More	Displays a text file, pausing at each screen. Use the ENTER key and the SPACEBAR to scroll through a file one line at a time and one screen at a time, respectively.
Rd or Rmdir	Removes a folder.
Ren or Rename	Renames a folder
Set	Displays or modifies Recovery Console environment variables.
Systemroot	Sets the current folder to the %SystemRoot% folder of the current Windows installation.
Type	Displays a text file.

Tip: In 99.999 percent of cases, the most common cause of problems with boot files is the improper use of third-party disk utilities or when you guys try to create a dual-boot system. Don’t use dual-boot systems. I say it all the time.

If the setup program for another operating system is incompatible with Windows XP, it most likely overwrote or damaged the startup files. Following is a short list that may help with some repair techniques that are available from the Recovery Console.

• The Boot.ini file is corrupt or missing from the Recovery Console.
  Type bootcfg /scan to list all of the available Windows installations on all the available disks. Use bootcfg /rebuild to automatically replace the existing Boot.ini file. Use bootcfg /add to append a Windows installation to the Boot.ini file without changing existing entries.

• Critical system files are damaged or missing.
  You can restore Ntldr, Ntoskrnl.exe, Ntdetect.com, and driver files from the Recovery Console. If the file exists on the Windows CD, use the Copy command in the Recovery Console. Type the source and destination path of the file. Windows expands compressed files automatically. If the file is stored within a .cab file, like the Driver.cab file, you will need to use the Expand command to gain access to the file.

• Another operating system replaced the Windows XP boot sector code.
  Start the Recovery Console from the Windows CD. (If you installed the Recovery Console, you will not be able to boot to the Startup menu.) Then, use the Fixboot command to rewrite the boot sector code. Finally, reboot your computer.

Tip: One final thing! If the Recovery Console will not work after you use Sysprep, check out Q308402 in the knowledge base. That will tell you how to get the fix.

Whoa, Nelly! I think I got carried away here. Every time I started to write something, it rattled my brain, and I said, ‘Oh, yeah, Cleve, don’t forget to tell them about this and then that and then that and that and that!’ Time to stop! Thank you to Mr. Chris Peacock, from Australia, for asking for this tip. Send what-did-you-think-of-it e-mail to me: clevek@microsoft.com.

 

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