Finding the Recovery Console for XP Home

Before I came to this website, I despairingly thought my XP home CD had no recovery console. After being here for awhile, I learned that the recovery console is not always visible, although there are ways to get to it. In one thread, which I've unfortunately lost track of, there was a recommendation to use the shift key while booting from the CD. When I tried this, it was the first time that I got a certain menu that would allow me to do repairs rather than just reformat. I wanted to ask in this thread, if people with XP home have found their way to repair installs and the recovery console, and if so, via which buttons?

Thanks very much!
abri

 

To install the Windows Recovery Console, go to Start--->Run

Then type in

D:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons <enter>
where D:\ is the drive letter for your CD drive. That is an Alpha I, not a numeric 1, before 386.
You will obviously need to load the MS XP CD into D: Bazza

 

You can run the recovery console right from your XP installation CD. Here is a page with a short description.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

Scroll a little ways down to the heading "To start the computer and use the Recovery Console"
To expand on installing the recovery console locally, here is some screenshots of the process.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/recovery_console.htm

 

I'll try this. I don't have XP Pro, so the recovery console is not anywhere obvious.
Thanks so much!
abri

 

You can get into the recovery console by booting to your XP CD, and press 'R' at the first screen where it asks what you want to do: Repair an installation, Start a fresh installation, To exit setup press F3, etc... if you simply read what's on the screen, you'll have no trouble at all

hd2k

 

This is only for installing it to the hard drive, which may not be desired.

 

I realise that. I should have pointed that out.

What I quoted is a Boot option so that you can get to it without having to boot off the CD.:cool
Sometimes the MS OS CD is not available, :cry the CD/DVD drive mightn't be working, and you'll be able to start it quicker if it is installed on your hard drive already.

It comes up as an option on bootup, like a dual boot W98SE and XP option, and it will automatically boot into XP if you wait, or press <enter> Bazza

===

 

Hopperdave,
This is the obvious answer, pushing R, but it doesn't work for mine. Neither does pushing F10 or F12. However, there was a post some time back in which someone suggested using the shift key and something else and that brought me to a menu I'd never been able to see in the past. I wondered if anybody remembered having seen that. Anyway, I will consider Bazza's suggestion of installing it onto the harddrive. I somehow thought you always needed the CD and didn't realize that putting on the harddrive would allow you to get past a crash of some sort or the other.

Thanks for all your comments!!

abri

 

Yeah but, if your CD/DVD drive isnt working, or the CD isnt available, you wont be doing it anyway It wont install without pulling files off of the CD. Also, because you are running it off of the hard drive, you are not able to use rcon to its full potential.

YES, I know what you meant

 

If you set your BIOS to boot to CD, and only give it the option to boot to CD, then you dont have to press anything to start the CD boot process.

 

I have a um ... somewhat primitive original xp cd, which might be the German idea of protecting its customers. I'm not sure why they did that. When I use the xp cd as a bootup cd, no problem. I can boot up from it. However, if I want to change anything, the only obvious choice you are given is to reformat and reinstall. At some point I found out there is a way to get around this choice to the recovery console, it just doesn't use the same access mode as most other xp cd's.
abri

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f&displaylang=en

These have rcon on them too, just not chkdsk.