[Runfox]

My wifes computer got the blue screen, then after a restart would not reboot in any mode safe or normal. So after a few tries I got the Win CD up and did a repair, whic finally gave her back the Windows op sys. I inillitaly went into the Repair console, but quickly realized thats not what I wanted. I was surprised the Repair Console is all DOS, I didnt realize we still had DOS in Win XP. I havnt had to remember DOS commands since the WIN 3.1 days. I dont know what I can do with the reapir console, I dont remember hardly any of those old commands.
I am sure glad for this forum though. I did a search for repair win xp and found a link to what I was looking for. I repaired windows and got it back up. Funny when you go through repair, it looks just like a clean install so my wife was pretty worried I reformatted and she would loose all her files. Thankfully afterwards when it was finally done , windows looked the same, how ever i do have a few little diferences to take care of later.

So I guess if you know exactly what your doing you can use the repair console, otherwise , for me the windows repair works. I guess windows repair finds what was missing or coruppted and recopies it? If I could have gotten back to the blue screen I probably could have figuresdout what was messed up , but windows wouldnt even get back that far again.

[kimsland]

Hi thanks for your info

Windows XP Repair Guides can be found here (includes pics)
It's the second "R" prompt, refer to these tutorials: (please choose your Windows version)

Microsoft's Windows XP Professional Repair Install step by step
Part3: WinXP Professional Repair Guide

Microsoft's Windows XP Home Repair Install step by step
Windows XP Home Repair Guide

Note: a repair install will not lose any User data or programs
But it will take your Security Updates (including Service Packs) back to the time the Windows Setup CD was created
Therefore you will likely need to update your XP Service Pack back to XP SP3: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...3/default.mspx
And then continue all other Windows Security Updates online


The first "R" prompt will get you to the Recovery Console
The Recovery Console has many good uses but generally the main ones I post are:

System Restore: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe
CheckDisk: chkdsk /r

It can also be used to copy and move files, etc
The commands are not exactly the same as in the old days
There are some new commands and even some changed syntax of the commands
Usually when a support person asks you to go into the Recovery Console, is because Windows cannot be accessed in any other mode

I hope this helps

[Mak213]

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

[Runfox]

kimsland I don't quite follow you on one point. In the recovery console, what does

System Restore: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe , this do for me? That may be what I'm looking for.

[kimsland]

It is System Restore

It will start System Restore from the Recovery Console, the exact same System Restore that can be used in Windows
The command is: rstrui.exe
But, sometimes users have tried this and get invalid command
Therefore you may need to Change Directory (ChDir) to the correct folder
Or just run the command with the entire path: %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

System Restore can restore your computer to an earlier time when the fault was not there