Question

XP - boot problems - accessing recovery console

Asked by: Trigger747

I'll explain my entire problem from the start....but the question i have is in the last paragraph...

Last night, i clicked on IE and instead of going to my homepage, it went to some other page and then 4 or 5 seperate windows popped up. Then each of my cd-roms physically opened up and i got an IE pop up window which said something like, "did your cd-roms just open up? If so, you should download SpyWire". My computer then froze and when i tried to boot up again, XP would no longer boot. It gets to the start screen and then the computer just restarts. I tried running safe mode but the same thing happens.

I have win98 also installed on this computer so I booted that up and did a full system virus check with both Norton and AVG. Norton didn't find anything but AVG picked up a handful of viruses and i had them removed/fixed.

What I'm trying to do now is fix the XP boot problems and once I get XP to load, I'll run Norton WinDoctor to fix any registry problems. From my understanding, I have to get into the XP Recovery console to fix the boot problems. My question is how do i get there and what do i do once i get there? I changed the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM first and inserted my winxp cd into the drive and restarted but it didn't work. How else can i get into the recovery console? Is there a file on the xp cd that i could run from DOS to load it up? Can i load it up from win98?

Thanks in advance for the help. :)

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Asked On
2004-02-28 at 09:38:15ID20901263
Tags

spywire

,

boot

,

console

,

recovery

Topic

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
3
Points
75
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: WakeupPosted on 2004-02-28 at 09:43:09ID: 10476708

To get to the recovery console....Boot off the WinXP CD.  When you restart your computer WITH THE WINXP CD in the drive, it will/should ask you to HIT ANY KEY TO BOOT FROM CD (something like that)  At that time you have about 2 or 3 seconds to press a key before it moves on to boot to the hard drive.  

Once you've done that then you need to select R for recovery console.  From there you have options such as this:

CHKDSK /R
Which will go in and see if there are any problems with the drive and some of the software.  

Fixboot
to fix the boot sector.

Fixmbr
which will fix the mbr.

So I would suggest the Chkdsk /r first.

and then the later two if that didnt work.

 

by: CrazyOnePosted on 2004-02-28 at 09:45:22ID: 10476724

How Do I Do a "Repair Installation"?
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm

Repair
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

Visual aid to the above procedure
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
Click on How To Run a Repair Install

You May Lose Data or Program Settings After Reinstalling, Repairing, or Upgrading Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;312369

Data Loss May Occur After Reinstalling, Repairing, or Upgrading Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;312368

 

by: Trigger747Posted on 2004-02-28 at 09:51:52ID: 10476767

"To get to the recovery console....Boot off the WinXP CD.  When you restart your computer WITH THE WINXP CD in the drive, it will/should ask you to HIT ANY KEY TO BOOT FROM CD (something like that)  At that time you have about 2 or 3 seconds to press a key before it moves on to boot to the hard drive.  "

My problem is that it doesn't ask me to boot from cd, it just goes straight to the boot from hard drive.  I've checked my BIOS and CD-ROM is the first thing in the list so i can't figure out what the problem is.  

Is there any other way i can get to the recovery console from DOS or win98?

 

by: gemartiPosted on 2004-02-28 at 10:00:33ID: 10476812

I just want to elaborate on Wakeup's comments.

When you run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR keep this in mind. You have booted with the CD. If you use FIXBOOT with out any drive designation it will try to create a boot.ini file for the CD Rom Drive which it cannot do; same with the FIXMBR. So make sure you use the correct syntax. If you CD rom drive is registered as D: and your hard drive is C: then

FIXBOOT C:
and
FIXMBR C:

 

by: gemartiPosted on 2004-02-28 at 10:01:49ID: 10476817

Hmmm for some reason I didn't see your post when I posted. Or it took me nearly 9 minutes to type that.

 

by: gemartiPosted on 2004-02-28 at 10:02:31ID: 10476820

Here this will help:

Windows XP Professional Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=55820edb-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f&displaylang=en

The Windows XP startup disk allows computers without a bootable CD-ROM to perform a new installation of the operating system. The Windows XP startup disk will automatically load the correct drivers to gain access to the CD-ROM drive and start a new installation of Setup. You cannot upgrade from a Windows XP startup disk.

 

by: gemartiPosted on 2004-02-28 at 10:03:10ID: 10476825

These boot disks will help you get to the recovery console.

 

by: Trigger747Posted on 2004-03-01 at 11:26:33ID: 10489011

Thanks for the help guys.

This is how I ended up fixing the problem.  I started win98, loaded the xp installation cd and then started a new installation.  When the installation process rebooted the computer, it went to the setup screen (recovery console) automatically and instead of continuing with the new installation i just clicked "R" and repaired the old one.  

I picked up some valuable info from all of you guys so I'll divide the points evenly.  

Cheers.

 

by: gemartiPosted on 2004-03-01 at 11:46:25ID: 10489143

Thank you.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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