Mention the Windows recovery console to many, and you'll probably be met with an answer of 'recovery what?' It's certainly something I have never seen much written about. This little utility is perfect for partitioning, setting up dual operating systems, fixing the master boot record and quite a few other things, but we'll come to them shortly.

I could tell you lots and lots, and lots more about the program but for now I will endeavour to keep it simple. The plan here is to tell you a bit about the program, how to gain access to it and some of the most useful commands.

A word of warning, though. Before we get started I must stress that you can damage Windows by not being careful with the Recovery Console, and so everything you do is at your own risk. You will also need the administration password used to originally set up the installation of Windows XP. Basically, be warned that this program can save your bacon, but it can also burn it...

What's It All About?

First, here is a brief idea of what the program actually is. The Recovery Console doesn't look like much, but it's a very powerful program that operates in a command prompt environment and has the ability to cure quite a few problems that can occur in an installation of Windows XP.

There are two ways to access the Recovery Console, the easiest of which is as follows. Place your Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM Drive and restart the computer. Just after the Post screen displays at the bottom of the screen it should flash up press any key to boot from CD. You need to click a key here (you may need to change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from CD first).

It will then boot as if you were installing Windows XP from scratch.  Let it load all the files into memory. This will take a good bit of time but eventually you will end up at the Welcome to Setup screen. It lists a few options including the Recovery Console and you will to hit 'R' to get into it.

The other way to gain access to the Recovery Console is to log into Windows. Remember, you need to have administrator status to do any of this. Then you place your Windows XP installation disk into your CD-ROM. Then click start, go to the run dialog and type (assuming D is the letter of your CD/DVD drive):  D:\i386\winnt32.exe/cmdcons

You will then need to follow the onscreen instructions. If all has gone well when your system restarts you will be offered the Recovery Console as an alternative Operating System option.

Either way to get into the Recovery Console is fine. The first is best for setting up your system or repairing it. While the second technique is best if you feel you will need to access the program regularly.

You're In

Hopefully you've managed to get into the Recovery Console now. It will list the operating systems installed on your computer. It will then list them in terms of the drives they are on and the partitions and folders they are in. Pick the operating system you plan to work on and it will then ask you to enter your administrator password. This is the password used when setting up Windows XP originally. If you didn't set one up, just hit enter. The command prompt may not look great but you can do an amazing amount of good and bad with it.

It'd be easy to fill umpteen pages with the ins and outs of what the Recovery Console can do, but for ease, I'm going to concentrate on giving a list of the available commands you can use. They may look simple but with these you will be able to do a lot. For more information on any of these commands just click on help on the Start menu and do a search for the Recovery Console. This should bring up a whole host of extra information. The Microsoft Knowledge Base is usually the most comprehensive and has walkthrough guides to various tasks. When using the Recovery Console, if you type the word HELP at the command prompt it will list a full set of all the commands available.

You also will need to remember that there are limits and you will only have access to the system root and folders of your chosen Windows installation. That's in addition to the root folder, the CMDCONS folder and anything you have in your CD or optical drive. If you try anywhere else it will most likely tell you access denied.  Something to remember is it will let you copy a file from a floppy you have inserted but it will not allow you to save to that same floppy. Without further ado, take a peek over at the boxout, where you'll find a list of commands with details of what they do.

Time Saved

It's quite possible that this piece has raised further questions, and if that's the case, then we'll revisit the Recovery Console in a future feature. Suffice to say that, used properly, it's a program that can save you a significant amount of hassle.

Recovery Console Commands
Attrib - Changes the attributes of a file or directory
Batch - Executes any commands specified in the text file
Bootcfg - For Boot file (Boot.Ini) recovery and configuration
Chdir (CD) - Changes the name of the current directory or will change the current directory
Chkdsk - Checks a disk and display a report of its findings
Cls - Clears the screen
Copy - Copies a single file to another location
Delete - Deletes one or more files
Disable - Disables a system service or device driver
Diskpart - Helps you manage partitions on your hard drives
Dir - Displays a list of files and sub-directories in a directory
Enable - Enables a system service or device driver
Exit - Exits the Recovery Console and restart your computer
Expand - Extracts a file from a compressed file/archive
Fixboot - Writes a new boot partition onto the partition specified (use with care!)
Fixmbr - Repairs the Master Boot Record of the chosen disk (use with care too!)
Format - Formats a drive
Help - Displays a list of commands available for use in the Recovery Console
Listsvc - Lists the drivers and services on your computer. This list tends to be extremely long
Logon - Logons to an installation of Windows. You will need the administrator password for that version of Windows
Map - Displays the drive letter mappings
Mkdir (Md) - Creates a directory
More - Displays a text file
Net Use - Connect a network share to a drive letter
Rename (Ren) - Renames a single file
Rmdir (Rd) - Deletes a directory so be careful
Set - Sets and display the environment variables
Systemroot - Sets the current directory to the systemroot directory of the system you are on
Type - Displays a text file without modifying it