SCREENSHOTS OF windows recovery console

On the "Windows XP Professional Setup" menu, select "R" for Recovery Console :

You will be prompted to select the Windows installation to repair :
(usually just "1" ) :


You will need to enter the Administrator password !


At the command-prompt, type any valid command.
To get an overview on the supported commands, type : HELP




To get more detailed information on any of these commands, type the commannd followed by "/?",
which will then display the specific Help-information.

You have access to :
- the root directory of all disks
- the Windows system directory (and all sub-directories), usually : C:\WINNT
- to removable disks (floppy disk and CD-ROM drives)

You have NO Access to any other directory !

You can copy files FROM Floppy disk to the directories on disk, to which you have access.
You can NOT copy files from disk to Floppy Disk !


type : EXIT to restart the system.

Recovering from Bootup problems :
When the system displays on booting a message of "missing" NTLDR or NTDETECT,
you can copy these files via Recovery Console from the CD-ROM :

make sure to be on the root of the C:-drive (please make : CD \ ).
In my example, the CD-ROM drive is Drive D: , allowing to make a copy of the files
NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from the i386-directory to the C:\ - root directory.


If there is a problem with the Boot-sector on the C:-drive, you can use "fixboot" to write
a new boot-sector.
If there is a problem with the Master-Boot-Record of the disk (maybe damaged by a virus),
you can use "fixmbr" to write a new MBR :

Extract files from CAB-files using "expand" :


example: I have copied a CAB-file from CD-ROM, display the content of the CAB-file
using "expand xxx.CAB /d /f:*" and then extract the required files via : "expand xxx.CAB /f:yyy":