racy1
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Recovery Console hangs on "Please Wait"
Another annoying XP foible. When I bought a larger HDD and copied all the files including hidden and system boot to the C: partition of drive zero (Win98 OS in multiboot), I remembered that XP on drive 1 (D:) would probably want to rebuild bootcfg using the Recovery Console. However the Console no longer runs. I have reinstalled it from within XP and added it to the boot menu options. But it just hangs there on "Please wait" forever. I would like to get it back to see if i can use it to restore my C: partition back to C: (previous question).
Is there any way anyone knows of to get this reinstalled so it will work and/or any way to get into the Recovery Console besides reinstalling Win XP and choosing it after setup. That does not work by the way because when i try to do that Windows setup likewise hangs on "Starting Windows."
Both 98 and XP otherwise are running normally; which i assume i should be grateful for after about a week of copying and moving system files around to get them where both OS would run. I tried every conceivable way of reinstalling XP. Inside 98, DOS, boot from CD, command prompt, from directory on C: and D: drives etc. Nothing works. All the setups hang on the reboot and "Starting Windows" blue screen before the GUI. I am stumped. And annoyed. It took me over a week to get past that and use the old installations normally except for the dead Recovery Console and the reversed C: and E: partitions (previous question, both worth 250 points).
Is there any way anyone knows of to get this reinstalled so it will work and/or any way to get into the Recovery Console besides reinstalling Win XP and choosing it after setup. That does not work by the way because when i try to do that Windows setup likewise hangs on "Starting Windows."
Both 98 and XP otherwise are running normally; which i assume i should be grateful for after about a week of copying and moving system files around to get them where both OS would run. I tried every conceivable way of reinstalling XP. Inside 98, DOS, boot from CD, command prompt, from directory on C: and D: drives etc. Nothing works. All the setups hang on the reboot and "Starting Windows" blue screen before the GUI. I am stumped. And annoyed. It took me over a week to get past that and use the old installations normally except for the dead Recovery Console and the reversed C: and E: partitions (previous question, both worth 250 points).
ASKER
I replaced the RAM and ran tests with the new and old RAM both with no errors. Thanks.
By the way, to all concerned, I have solved (hopefully a permanent soulution) this particular question. recovery console now works, although it says upon starting that it can't start and to type exit. However all the commands work except that it can't run bootcfg etc because it starts on the C: drive which is not a boot drive according to WinXP and none of the commands so far are workable except on the E: drive. I am attempting to solve that one now. i have instituted group policies which will allow access to all drives and directories next time I boot to Recovery Console.
Still do not know if i can get it to change boot partition back to C: instead of E:
By the way, to all concerned, I have solved (hopefully a permanent soulution) this particular question. recovery console now works, although it says upon starting that it can't start and to type exit. However all the commands work except that it can't run bootcfg etc because it starts on the C: drive which is not a boot drive according to WinXP and none of the commands so far are workable except on the E: drive. I am attempting to solve that one now. i have instituted group policies which will allow access to all drives and directories next time I boot to Recovery Console.
Still do not know if i can get it to change boot partition back to C: instead of E:
ASKER
This is what I did to solve this problem:
I have solved this particular question, although other issues remain which i will post later if need be. I found all instances of "cmldr" and all dir "cmdcons" and deleted them. I also edited boot.ini to remove the line making Recovery console an option. then i rebooted to XP and used a command line to reinstall the recovery console from CD and from Windows Updated internet setup files. After that, the console starts. It says it can't load due to configuration errors and to type exit, but it is already loaded at that point and the commands work except for the drive letter mixup problem still open in another question.
Also once i used Recovery Console to fixboot and fixmbr on the C: drive by expanding group policy to include all drives and directories, and restored my original installed drive letters, the Console now boots normally without resorting to error messages that say it can't load.
Thanks JD for a response which might have worked, but i had already done that procedure yesterday. probably should have mentioned it, but I did that mostly to solve some other problem unrelated to this one.
I have solved this particular question, although other issues remain which i will post later if need be. I found all instances of "cmldr" and all dir "cmdcons" and deleted them. I also edited boot.ini to remove the line making Recovery console an option. then i rebooted to XP and used a command line to reinstall the recovery console from CD and from Windows Updated internet setup files. After that, the console starts. It says it can't load due to configuration errors and to type exit, but it is already loaded at that point and the commands work except for the drive letter mixup problem still open in another question.
Also once i used Recovery Console to fixboot and fixmbr on the C: drive by expanding group policy to include all drives and directories, and restored my original installed drive letters, the Console now boots normally without resorting to error messages that say it can't load.
Thanks JD for a response which might have worked, but i had already done that procedure yesterday. probably should have mentioned it, but I did that mostly to solve some other problem unrelated to this one.
ASKER
To all concerned, the Recovery Console was able to unreverse my original C: and E: partitions back to normal. This only works, btw if you are restoring the original partition letters that existed during Win XP setup; and they somehow get changed to the wrong letters.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Test with docmem 2.0 from www.simmtester.com, it is a free download and you just start the computer with the bootable disk it makes and run a burn in test. Let it look for an hour or so, and if any tests fail, replace the ram. If you have multiple sticks of ram, you may have to test one at a time to get an acurate test.
Good luck