Monday 24 January 2011

How to Use the Recovery Console to repair Windows XP

Have you ever experienced what I had experienced as well, when suddenly the windows operating system will not boot as usual. Each time you wish to turn. Arriving at the bootscreen and then suddenly the computer restarts again. This is unbelievably annoying, but assignments and office work has to be immediately resolved.

Here I'll describe a little way we can overcome this problem with a cool head. If you are using Windows XP, you might be aware of the option “Repair Windows XP Using Recovery Console” at the setup of your Windows XP installation. This is one of the most undertilised options that is being used by users when there is a crash in the Windows XP operating system.


I recently encountered this issue with my clients laptop as his laptop keeps on restarting. When that happen, the only idea i will get is the boot up file (Boot.ini) is corrupted. Normally the easiest way out is to use the “Automatic Repair” function, but in this case that option is unavailable on my client’s laptop.


Another way out is to “F” (which means format) the hard drive of the laptop but think about the valuable data you are going to erase :( .

Hence, I’m giving my shot using the “old-school” command prompt style which is the Recovery Console”.




Press R on your keyboard to enter the Recovery Console.



Basically on the Recovery Console is only command prompt, nothing else.

To begin Windows will provide you the necessary information for you to begin your repair.


Here are he steps for you to take note when performing this process




1) After the first question, type 1 and press enter.

Type the administrator password (if available) and hit enter.




2) Type CD .. (note there must be a space between CD and .. )

This will bring you to the main “C” directory.




3) Type the following attributes.

  • C:\>ATTRIB -H C:\\BOOT.INI
  • C:\>ATTRIB -R C:\\BOOT.INI
  • C:\>ATTRIB -S C:\\BOOT.INI



4) Type DEL BOOT.INI

5) After that type BOOTCFG /Rebuild




This process may take some time to complete, Once that is done, just type CHKDSK /R /F . This procees again will take some time as it will check the disk status. Do note it can take up to 30 minutes or more on slower machines. Once the check disk process is complete, complete the whole process by typing FIXBOOT and click enter.


You will be given a prompt that reads Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?”


Simply type Y for yes. Once done, type exit to restart your PC. You will now be able to boot normally on your Windows XP.