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~~Vic Ferri, WinTips and Tricks

Adding the Windows XP Recovery Console To Your Boot Menu

Normally, to start the Recovery Console in XP, you need to find your CD and load it, and then wait for the setup to begin.  If you find yourself using the Recovery Console more than just once in a blue moon, it would be much more convenient to install it on your hard drive and have it listed as an option with your boot menu at startup. This way, any time you need to enter the Recovery Console, all you have to do is restart your computer and choose Recovery Console from the boot menu.  Doing it this way also loads it faster, since a hard drive is faster than a CD.  It's also a good idea to install it if you have a server or workstation. What a hassle it would be to always have to find a CD.

You should know that you can only install the Recovery Console on your computer if you have Administrative rights.  If you do, then installing it is quite easy.

Here's how and in this example we will assume that your CD-ROM is drive G:

Adding the Recovery Console

1. Insert your Windows XP setup CD into your CD-ROM drive.

2. Click Start > Run and type the following command:

G:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons
(where G: is your CD-ROM drive letter)

3. You will now see a setup box appear with information describing what you are doing and asking you to confirm installation.  Click Yes to continue.

4. Once completion is indicated, reboot your computer.

And that's all there is to it. Next time you boot up, you will see the Recovery Console added to your boot menu or if you never had a boot menu (i.e. - you had a sole operating system), then one will be created listing your operating system (Windows XP) and the Recovery Console on the menu. Windows XP will be default, naturally, so if you don't interact with the menu at boot up, Windows XP will automatically load as usual, after the wait time is up.

NOTE - you can control how long you want the boot menu to stay up by editing your boot ini file.  You can do this in System Properties.

• Right click My Computer and then click Properites > Advanced tab.
• Then under the "Startup and Recovery" section, click Settings. There you will see the option to choose the number of seconds you want the menu to stay up before the default operating system starts to load on it's own. The default is 30 seconds.

Removing the Recovery Console

If for whatever reason, you want to remove the Recovery Console from your system and boot menu, first make sure that you are not hiding system files.

• Open any folder and click Tools>Folder Options> View Tab and if not already checked, put a checkmark next to "Show hidden files and folders" and remove the checkmark from "Hide protected operating system files"
• Click Ok to save your changes.

Then restart your computer and when you get back into Windows, delete the Cmdcons folder and Cmldr file, both of which should be in your root drive, i.e. -  your C: drive.

NOTE - If you have, for example, a dual boot setup with one system like Windows 98 on the C: drive and XP on another partition, like the E: drive, your root folder for XP is still C:, not E.  More than once, I have heard " I can't find my boot.ini file in XP" and it was because they had a dual boot system, with XP not on the primary C: drive, and so they confined their search within XP only.

After deleting the folder and file, you have successfully removed the Recovery Console from your hard drive, but not from your boot menu. To get it out of your boot menu, you need to remove the line that places it there, which is in your boot.ini file which you can access directly in the root folder or you can go to the same place in System Properties where you set the boot menu time, to access it. If you access it directly, be sure to remove the Read Only attribute.

Whichever way you access it, here is what the line you need to remove would look like:
C:\cmdcons\bootsect.dat="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Make sure you delete ONLY that line. If you mess up any other line, you can end up not being able to boot.

If you're not sure, make a backup of boot.ini before you proceed. Also be sure to reset the Read Only attribute once you're done - if you edited boot.ini directly in the root folder rather than in System Properties.

And that's it. The Recovery Console is now off your system and off your boot menu.

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Vic Ferri owns the very popular WinTips and Tricks and Registry Answers. Subscribe to either and receive free Windows and Registry Tips. He is also in charge of the Printing Tips pages at Linda's Computer Stop. Vic has also created a program which allows you to Lock & Hide desktop folders in Windows 9X/ME. Read more and get the free demo here. And, he now offers a service to convert PowerPoint presentations to .exe files which can be viewed on computers which do not have PowerPoint installed.