recovery consol help

I cannot figure out how to use the recovery consol.. My computer stopped booting yesterday, and it freezes completely after WinXP original screen comes up, the blue bar moves from left to right about 4 times as usual, then the screen goes black, the HD light is permanently on, but the system is frozen (numlock etc. does not work, so it is completely frozen).. I tried to use the recovery consol, and it asks me which Windows I'd like to fix, I type in 1 <ENTER> but it asks me for my admin pw, which I don't have and never had (just enter).. I press enter, and it throws me to the C:\WINDOWS prompt.. From here I can type a bunch of commands, but I don't know how to try to repair the Windows?! What do I have to do so it tried to repair? When I try to LOGON with that command, it asks me again which windows, I tell it, then it asks me for admin pw, I press enter, but it just takes me back to the prompt. If I type anything else for pw, it says its the wrong pw (it doesn't say that when I just press enter, it just throws me back at the prompt).. I don't want to run FIXBOOT yet before I hear from you, since it seems the boot sector is fine, since it tries to boot and only freezes after about 10 secs, which would suggest some corruption of WinXP files, not the HD itself.. Any help with recovery consol would be appreciated, and how it really works, I've never been able to use it successfully, I always end up reinstalling completely.

Oh I wish I didn't lose my PEBUILDER cd, at least then I could backup my important files and do a reformat which I wouldn't mind anyway, but as it is now, I cannot copy anything onto my 200 gigger because in the recovery consol it says access denied to anything but DIR and the commands themselves!

You can type 'Help' at the command prompt to get a complete list of commands available to you while in the Recovery Console.

From the way it's hanging, however, it leads me to think that there's a driver conflict or something, not a bootsector issue. Have you installed anything new lately? New hardware or drivers? How long have you let it hang for when it does hang?

You might wanna try to boot into Safe Mode to see if it'll go there. If it'll boot into Safe Mode, it's pro'lly just a driver conflict, requiring you to do a roll back to a previous point, or simply uninstalling the driver or pesky hardware that's hanging it. It could also be dying hardware. Try booting your system w/ just the essentials, and see if it'll go.

Here is a good link.

http://www.is-it-true.org/nt/nt2000/atips/atips32.shtml

However, If you have your cd, boot with it and select the "repair" option.

The system will not boot into safe mode, it loads a bunch of files, then hangs at one of them and just sits there, frozen again (no response from keyboard at all).. I was under the impression that you can just reload windows over top of the old one and essentially keep everything intact, but I cannot find that, and if I try to reinstall windows, it tells me I may lose all my documents and it will delete all my windows before proceeding, and I cannot have that.. I have not changed anything, I came home after a long weekend and the computer was slow.. I decided to shut it down (i keep it on most of the time, restart on average once a week), but after 10 mins when I restarted, this problem occured, and I cannot fix it since. I can load windows on another drive I suppose and then backup everything, and then reformat C drive, but thats a long process.

If your not in a hurry, I can mail you a good working Bart's PE.

What file does it hang at? How long do you leave it when it hangs?

thecondor, Bart's pebuilder would be great, but I am in kind of a hurry, not really, but I am lost without my system, you know how it is.. I am using my secondary 500mhz celeron now, and that just doesn't cut it, but at least I am on the net.. I think I am just gonna setup windows on D drive and then transfer all important files from my C drive, after which I will reinstall on C drive.. oh wowz..

Oni, I will let you know, let me try to do it.. i'll edit this post when I do it.. I don't let it hang there for more then about 2 minutes, thats all.. the HD light is steady ON, but it flashes off for a split second every 45 secs or so. Also, as I said, the keyboard is locked, numlock won't come on when pressed.

EDIT: ok, its locked at Mup.sys

loads the rest real quick, then just sits there.. its been about 1 minute so far, the numlock won't come on, so the keyboard is locked out. The HD light is ON but steady, doesn't seem to be flashing at all..

ok, after about 1.5 mins, the HD light went off for a full second or two, now its fully on again, still stuck at Mpu.sys

any advice? i'll leave it like this until you reply.

EDIT 2: ok, its been 5 mins, the HD flashes every 1 minute or so, otherwise its steady light ON.. still stuck at Mup.sys, no change on monitor, and keyboard still locked.

Trypt. Thats fine. Just thought I'd offer. And believe me, I do "know how it is"!

Also guys... how can I setup the recovery consol to allow me to copy files like PEBUILDER would? I try the Set command, but it tells me that command can only be used in some kind of special process that I have to do, but it doesn't go into specifics.. Right now all the rights under SET are set as FALSE, so I cannot copy or even access any of my private files, I can only go to root drive and WINDOWS dir, won't let me do anything else.

That's pretty much the limits of the recovery console. It doesn't let you
do anything with non-root directories. It's main purpose is to just get the OS going again if possible. Except for fixmbr and fixboot, I've never
found it to be very useful.

I got more problems now.. I decided to just reload Windows onto another drive.. My old WinXP drive is now my D drive, so I'll get all the info I need from it.. but now I have this damn worm, it shuts down my computer after a few minutes, like the old Blaster worm, I am not sure if it is the same one, but the message is the same, a window pops up says my computer will shut down in 60 seconds, and it does.. I am installing critical updates right now, could do it, but who knows if it will be done by the time my computer is hit again.. This is odd, my old system had no problems, now I install a brand new WinXP and I get hit? wtf? What do I do?

Trypt, I know it don't help now, but the Bart PE I'm sending does have the Adaware and Macafee plugins built in. The ref files are pretty recent.

Thanx a lot, and it will help, don't you worry.. I need that at all times, i just lost it, i use it all the time, and thanx for the plug ins, those will help a lot as well!!