How do you use the Recovery Console in Windows?

Answer 1

Recovery Console When your computer won't even start up in "safe mode", use Recovery Console. If you have put a password on your administrator account, you'll need it to boot up in Recovery mode. In Recovery Console mode, you can move, copy, and delete files. For the average PC user, that's what you'll be interested in. The Recovery Console is for best used for repairing your computer. Repairing your computer basically means, replacing bad files with good ones. For example, replacing a registry file that is corrupted with a good back up copy. There are two ways to start the Recovery Console: # Put your Windows Setup CD in the drive and restart the computer. * Different computers have different prompts as your computer is starting up. Some computers prompt you to hit F1 to change the boot sequence. Some computers don't have any prompt for the startup sequence, so you may have to go into the BIOS and set the boot sequence to boot from the CD drive. In any case, if you do get prompts, hit whatever keys are required to boot from the Windows Setup CD. * Starting up in Recover mode isn't anything like regular mode or safe mode. You can't use the mouse. All you will see is basic text on a black screen. After a screen with a text menu comes up, there will be a message at the bottom of the screen to type an "R" for the repair or recover option. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console. You will be asked for the Administrator password. Just hit "Enter" without typing anything if you didn't password protect the Administrator account. You will get a command prompt just like in MS-Dos. Type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command. To get out of the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit. # The only way you can start in Recover mode the second way, is if you installed the Recovery Console on your computer before hand. If you have installed the Recovery Console, then just choose the Recovery Console mode from a list of operating systems during startup. When the Recovery Console first starts, a prompt will ask you to choose which "installation" (Hard Drive) you want to look at if you have more than one hard drive in the computer. If you know MS-Dos commands, then you'll have no problem. But you may still need to type "help" and look at the available commands to get an idea of what you want to do.