Starting Windows XP with DOS command line?

Post by **Derek** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 11:47 am

If I remember correctly, you need to hit F8 on the keyboard just before the WinXP splash screen appears. A list will be displayed including a command line option.

HAL6000 · Post by **HAL6000** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 6:32 pm

grendizer wrote:Yes, I found it, but it's not really what I want.
I'd like to have command line before all those drivers launch, and be able to copy files from one drive to another. Do you think it's possible?

If your drive is FAT32 you can pop in a win98 boot disk and do everything I think you are wanting. Another trick if you don't want to use a floppy all the time is to boot from the floppy and use the sys command to your boot drive. "sys c:" I think it is actually a file you will need sys.com. The boot off your nt/2k/xp install disk and repair your install. You will have the option to boot to a command promt then.

If you have gone with NTFS you have to load ntfs drives to be able to access your drives then. I think you could use the system recovery console fpr what you may need here.

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 7:36 pm

There is a place on the microsoft website to download the "6-floppy disk boot file" for XP/XP-pro (different file for each OS). It was placed there grudgingly to accomodate the reality of life in the real world of Windows. Win-XP can crash in such a way that the bootup loading of NTFS gives BSOD & the OS says to run CHKDSK. No normal boot method will allow CHKDSK to run without NTFS loading 1ST - a Catch-22! The floppy boot set was meant to help solve this type of problem (and others) . You see, CHKDSK can run without the NTFS driver loaded - BUT, the file in the floppy set that must be edited to prevent the NTFS driver from loading is COMPRESSED by MS - Catch-23!! The normal EXPAND.EXE tool will give you an editable file, but, after disabling the line that loads NTFS.SYS, the file can't be re-COMPRESSED with normal tools. The 6-floppy boot set will not boot if the file remains EXPANDED - Catch-24! To resolve this requires a fresh install of Win-XP to a FAT32 drive partition - ON A DIFFERENT HDISK! Then on this drive, the NTFS.SYS driver loading can be disabled, since FAT32 does not need it. Then the mucked up drive can be connected (as a D: drive) examined by CHKDSK.EXE. In my case it took all of 1 minute for CHKDSK to fix the problem. How can such a huge load of crap ever get shipped out the door by Microsoft?? I'd like to drop 100 drives crashed like this in the lap of the programmers who came up with this scheme, & tell them they get their next meal after they are all fixed. Maybe a Function Key F4 at boot to allow CHKDSK to resolve problems before NTFS gets loaded would help. At least I avoided the loss of all the labor invested in the drive - but, it sure tool a lot of addl. labor!

the_flames · Post by **the_flames** » Wed Jul 16, 2003 9:24 am

I think what you want requires you to edit your boot.ini file

copy the os boot line that you want
edit the desc for the line and at the end add "/safeboot:minimal(alternateshell) "

save the boot.ini file, reboot and choose the option you have just created to test

it's been a while since Ive tested it but It should work

johnli · Post by **johnli** » Thu Jul 17, 2003 1:59 pm

I just boot from the CD and use the recovery console to run chkdsk, RRLedford.

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Fri Jul 18, 2003 9:40 am

johnli, the type of hdisk problem I had would give the BSOD from ANY BOOT possible - CDROM, SAFE, RECOVERY, every one. This problem would even give the no boot BSOD if I took the drive to another perfectly good Win2K/XP PC & attached it as a drive on the IDE secondary channel - BSOD on the good PC now too!
Yet, the problem was fixed by CHKDSK in about one minute, after I went thru all the effort to do the FAT32 WinXP install on a 2ND spare drive & disabled the loading of NTFS.SYS.
MS support could barely even comprehend the nature of this problem & kept offering unworkable solutions.