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XP Startup Issues - The Recovery Console

The Windows Recovery Console is a fantastically useful tool if you find yourself with a PC that will not boot Windows.

There are many useful Windows startup tools such as Last Known Good Configuration and the many different flavours of Safe Mode but all of these rely on a bootable Windows system. System Restore is completely useless in this scenario since it relies on one being in Windows to use it.

The kinds of things that could couse an unbootable Windows system could be:
  • Corrupted boot files - e.g. NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM
  • Corrputed Windows system files - NTOSKRNL.EXE, HAL.DLL
The Recovery Console allows you to boot into an environment "underneath" that of your Windows installation (by using the Windows CD or by choosing it at boot time if you pre-installed it) and so you can perform major low level repairs to your Windows installation.

Follow the link below to find out how to use the Recovery Console:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/

Comments

steve said…
Thanks Muhammad. That's a good tip indeed. Only problem is you have to have already done that before a problem appears - i.e. you need to be able to boot into XP in order to set this up. But this is well worth doing. Thanks.
24 November 2010 at 09:08
http://www.arx.com/resources/white-papers/pki-solution-for-electronic-signatures.htm said…
Thanks Muhammad ! This is great link for me. This is what you need to be able to boot into XP in order to set. You did well done job..Well done man !
17 May 2011 at 11:23
Public Key Infrastructure said…
Thanks Muhammad ! This is great link for me. This is what you need to be able to boot into XP in order to set. You did well done job..Well done man !
17 May 2011 at 11:24
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