Preventive Medicine with Windows Recovery Console

What happens if your computer won't boot up. For instance you get an error that says "Windows is unable to Start. Please insert Windows Setup disk and select to recover the missing files."

Typically this type of error has to do with a fragmented registry. A corrupt registry can leave you completely out of your system. If that happens to you, it might seem impossible to get back into Windows.

Essentially what you need is the Windows XP Professional disk to recover an earlier state of your registry. But, what if you're away from the office and you don't have it???

The things to do ahead of time, as preventative medicine, is to make a back up of your registry on a frequent basis, and install Microsoft's Recovery Console on your hard drive.

Microsoft Recovery Console is, in essence, an operating system that can be selected upon boot up. Unfortantely, it is not part of the normal install when your computer was set up (by Dell, Compaq). So you must put it on yourself.

Here are the steps to install it:

1. Log on to Windows XP Pro as an admin or user with admin rights.
2. Insert the Windows XP Pro CD. If you are prompted to upgrade Windows XP, click No.
3. From a command prompt enter the following command
   "d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons" (make sure d:\ is your cd-drive)
4. Follow the instructions that are provided.

It will take up about 7 mb on your hard drive. Now, if your computer ever desides not to boot up properly in the future, you can select Windows Recovery Console via the F8 key and make the necessary changes/fixes to your system so that you can boot back up. And then, once you are in, use a registry restore application to get your system back to a state that is "normal." Otherwise, you might not be able launch and load the applications you had installed previously.