Allow Windows Setup to load the appropriate files. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to start the Recovery Console, which is the second option that appears in the bulleted list. On the following screen, enter the number for the WinXP installation that you’re trying to recover, usually listed as “1.” If you have multiple operating systems installed, enter the number that corresponds to the malfunctioning WinXP installation. Press ENTER to continue. Next enter the administrator’s password and press ENTER. The resulting prompt lets you access the files on your computer using text-based commands. Type help and press ENTER to see a list of the available commands.

Check Disk

At the command prompt, type chkdsk /p and press ENTER to perform a thorough scan of the files on your hard drive. When finished, your screen will display the volume creation date, serial number, kilobytes of total disk space, kilobytes of space available, and other information regarding the system’s boot drive. If you see the message, “CHKDSK found one or more errors on the volume,” then run the scan again but with the repair command. This scans the files on your hard drive for files that have become damaged or lost and then copies and overwrites the appropriate files. To begin repairing the damaged file system, type chkdsk /r at the command prompt and press ENTER. This may take several minutes. When the process is finished, you may see the message “CHKDSK found and fixed one or more errors on the volume.” Type exit and press ENTER to leave the Recovery Console. Next press ENTER to restart the computer. If the problem persists, you may need to address the boot sector.

Repair The Boot Sector

Problems can sometimes occur when a file within the hard drive’s boot sector becomes damaged or corrupt. The boot sector is the first thing on your computer’s hard drive that loads upon startup, and errors on it may keep your computer from starting and prevent you from accessing Safe Mode. The Recovery Console offers the two “fix” commands that can help you repair boot sector problems. Type fixboot and press ENTER to repair the boot sector, or type fixmbr and press ENTER to rewrite the master boot record within the boot sector. These commands work when the boot sector and master boot record you’re attempting to fix are located on the system boot partition, or the part of the hard drive from which your operating system loads each time your turn your computer on.

If you’re attempting to fix the boot sector or master boot record of another disc, type the disc location after the command. When typing these commands, it’s important to follow the syntax that the Recovery Console understands. If you think a hard drive other than the one that houses your OS (operating system) has a corrupt boot sector or master boot record, then type map and press ENTER to determine what to type after the initial command. You should see all optical drives, floppy drives, and hard drives listed by drive letter, followed by the proper syntax. For example, the fixboot\Device\Harddisk1 command fixes the boot sector of a secondary hard disk. Press ENTER to execute this command.

by Andrew Leibman