Win 2000 - Add some RC to Windows 2000
- — 04 December, 2000 17:34
However, not even Windows 2000 can cope with everything. Recently, I updated my anti-virus program, and ended up with a system that rebooted itself upon startup. I had forgotten to tell the setup program not to install the anti-virus as a system service, so as not to interfere with a low-level driver for Adaptec's Easy CD software (which caused me an extraordinary amount of trouble earlier by colliding head-on with Windows Media Player 7 and denying access to my CD drives). (See http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q237/4/68.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0 for details.)Safe Mode wouldn't work, either. I got the infamous Blue Screen of Death with a cryptic error message: STOP 0x0000001E:KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED.
Had this been NT4 and my discs been NTFS partitions, it would have been time for some major wailing and gnashing of teeth, because it's very hard to recover from these types of errors. With Windows 2000, however, you have the nifty Recovery Console (RC) - which is a godsend for getting past those pesky STOP errors.
Running RC From CD-ROM
To run the RC, pop in your Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM, and boot up your computer. You might have to change a BIOS setting to have the system boot from your CD-ROM drive first. The familiar Windows 2000 setup and installation program will begin, and will examine the hardware in your system. When you get to the "Welcome To Setup" screen, press
If you haven't got a bootable, El Torito-compliant CD-ROM drive, you should create the four boot floppies from the Windows 2000 CD, by running \BOOTDISK\MAKEBOOT.BAT; have four fresh floppies handy.
Put RC on the menu
While it's useful to boot into the RC command prompt from the setup discs, it's also slow. If you can still access the system hard disks, why not put RC on the start-up menu? Follow these steps:
Insert the Windows 2000 CD-ROM, and either open a cmd-box or use the Start-Run Program dialogue.
Type
The file that tells the NTLOADER bootloader which operating systems to load - boot.ini - will be modified automatically, in the following manner:
[Boot Loader]
timeout=30
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT[Operating Systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetectC:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT"="Microsoft Windows 2000 Recovery Console" /cmdconsNow you'll have quick and easy access to the RC at boot-up, by pressing
Useful RC commands
The RC command interface is a bit quirky, but it does have online help for all items, and doesn't take long to get used to. Here's a list of the RC commands:
Attrib delete fixmbr more
Batch Dir format rd
Cd disable help ren
Chdir diskpart listsvc rename
Chkdsk enable logon rmdir
Cls Exit map systemroot
Copy expand md type
Del fixboot mkdir set
Most of the commands behave more or less like their DOS counterparts - for example, "Dir" gives you a directory listing.
In my case, I used listsvc (list service) to figure out the name of the offending anti-virus service, and then typed disable
Some other commands that can save your hide include:
Fixboot - use this if the boot sector of your Windows 2000 boot partition becomes corrupted. Use it with the
Fixmbr - as the name implies, this command repairs the Master Boot Record on the Windows 2000 system partition, if, for instance, a virus has whacked it. It can be dangerous to use if the virus is still there, so disinfect first. Use it in combination with the map command to get the name of the device on which to put the new MBR.
The Recovery Console is your friend. Learn how to use it as soon as possible!
