The Recovery Console is a feature of the
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...
,
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
and
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...
operating systems. It provides the means for administrators to perform a limited range of tasks using a
command-line interface.
Its primary function is to enable administrators to recover from situations where Windows does not
boot as far as presenting its
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
. The recovery console is used to provide a way to access the hard drive in an emergency through the command prompt.
As such, the Recovery Console can be accessed either through the original installation media used to install Windows, or it can also be installed to the hard drive and added to the
NTLDR menu. However, relying on the latter is much more risky because it requires that the computer can boot to the point that NTLDR loads, or else it would not work at all.
Abilities
The Recovery Console has a simple
command-line interpreter
A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...
(or CLI). Many of the available
commands closely resemble the commands that are normally available in
cmd.exe
Command Prompt, also known as cmd.exe or cmd, is the default command-line interpreter for the OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS, Microsoft Windows (Windows NT family and Windows CE family), and ReactOS operating systems. On Windows CE .NET 4.2, Windo ...
, namely
attrib,
copy
Copy may refer to:
*Copying or the product of copying (including the plural "copies"); the duplication of information or an artifact
**Cut, copy and paste, a method of reproducing text or other data in computing
**File copying
**Photocopying, a pr ...
,
del
Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...
, and so forth.
From the Recovery Console an administrator can:
* create and remove directories, and copy, erase, display, and
rename files
* enable and disable services (which modifies the service control database in the registry, to take effect when the system is next bootstrapped)
* repair boot file, using the
bootcfg command
* write a new
master boot record to a disk, using the
fixmbr command
* write a new
volume boot record to a volume, using the
fixboot command
* format volumes
* expand files from the compressed format in which they are stored on the installation
CD-ROM
* perform a full
chkdsk
In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and ...
scan to repair corrupted disks and files, especially if the computer cannot be started properly
Filesystem access on the Recovery Console is by default severely limited. An administrator using the Recovery Console has only read-only access to all volumes except for the
boot volume, and even on the boot volume only access to the root directory and to the Windows system directory (e.g. \WINNT). This can be changed by changing Security Policies to enable read/write access to the complete file system including copying files from removable media (i.e. floppy drives).
Commands
The following is a list of the Recovery Console
internal
Internal may refer to:
*Internality as a concept in behavioural economics
*Neijia, internal styles of Chinese martial arts
*Neigong or "internal skills", a type of exercise in meditation associated with Daoism
*''Internal (album)'' by Safia, 2016
...
commands:
*
attrib
* batch
*
bootcfg (introduced in Windows XP)
*
cd
*
chdir
*
chkdsk
In computing, CHKDSK (short for "check disk") is a system tool and command in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and related operating systems. It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and ...
*
cls
*
copy
Copy may refer to:
*Copying or the product of copying (including the plural "copies"); the duplication of information or an artifact
**Cut, copy and paste, a method of reproducing text or other data in computing
**File copying
**Photocopying, a pr ...
*
del
Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...
*
delete
*
dir
* disable
*
diskpart
* enable
*
exit
Exit(s) may refer to:
Architecture and engineering
* Door
* Portal (architecture), an opening in the walls of a structure
* Emergency exit
* Overwing exit, a type of emergency exit on an airplane
* Exit ramp, a feature of a road interchange
...
*
expand
* fixboot
* fixmbr
*
format
*
help
* listsvc
* logon
* map
*
md
*
mkdir
*
more
*
rd
*
ren
*
rename
*
rmdir
In computing, rmdir (or rd) is a command which will remove an empty directory on various operating systems.
Implementations
The command is available in Unix (e.g. macOS, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX), Unix-like (e.g. FreeBSD, Linux), DOS, Digital Resear ...
*
set (introduced in Windows XP)
* systemroot
*
type
Although it appears in the list of commands available by using the
help command, and in many articles about the Recovery Console (including those authored by Microsoft), the
net
Net or net may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Net (mathematics), a filter-like topological generalization of a sequence
* Net, a linear system of divisors of dimension 2
* Net (polyhedron), an arrangement of polygons that can be folded up ...
command is not available. No protocol stacks are loaded, so there is no way to connect to a
shared folder
In computing, a shared resource, or network share, is a computer resource made available from one host to other hosts on a computer network.
It is a device or piece of information on a computer that can be remotely accessed from another compu ...
on a remote computer as implied.
See also
*
Emergency Repair Disk
*
Comparison of command shells
References
External links
Description of the Recovery Console
{{Windows commands
Windows components
Windows command shells