MODIFYING THE REGISTRY

4-29Lesson 3 Troubleshooting Problems Using Startup and Recovery Tools

Important Starting Windows XP Professional using the Last Known Good configuration

overwrites any changes made since the last successful boot of Windows XP Professional.

Additional Advanced Boot Options

Pressing F8 during the operating system selection phase displays a screen with the

Windows Advanced Options menu. This menu provides the following additional

options:

Enable Boot Logging Selecting the Enable Boot Logging advanced boot option logs

the loading and initialization of drivers and services for troubleshooting boot

problems. All drivers and services that are loaded and initialized or that are not

loaded in a file are logged. The log file, NTBTLOG.TXT, is located in the %windir%

folder. All three versions of safe mode automatically create this boot log file.

See Also You can learn more about using boot logging to troubleshoot by reading Appendix D

of the Microsoft Windows XP Professional Resource Kit Documentation on the Microsoft Web

site at https://traloihay.net.

Enable VGA Mode Selecting the Enable VGA Mode advanced boot option starts

Windows XP Professional with a basic VGA driver. Use this setting if you are expe-

riencing problems with the video card, video driver, or monitor.

Directory Services Restore Mode Selecting the Directory Services Restore Mode

advanced boot option is applicable only to domain controllers, so it does not

apply to computers running Windows XP Professional.

Debugging Mode Selecting the Debugging Mode advanced boot option starts Win-

dows XP Professional in kernel debug mode, which allows a debugger to break

into the kernel for troubleshooting and system analysis.

Disable Automatic Restart On System Failure By default, Windows XP Profes-

sional automatically restarts the computer when there is a system failure. Nor-

mally, this default setting works well, but you might want to disable automatic

restarts when you are troubleshooting certain problems. A good example of this is

when troubleshooting stop errors. If automatic restarting is enabled, Windows

restarts the computer before you can get a chance to read the error message. Use

the Disable Automatic Restart On System Failure setting to prevent Windows from

restarting when the computer fails (using this setting gives you the chance to read

the error or perform any actions you need to perform before a restart).

Note When using the advanced boot options in Windows XP, logging is enabled with every

option except Last Known Good Configuration. The system writes the log file (NTBTLOG.TXT)

to the %systemroot% folder. In addition, each option except Last Known Good Configuration

loads the default VGA driver.

Using an advanced boot option to boot the system sets the environment variable

%SAFEBOOT_OPTION% to indicate the mode used to boot the system.

How to Perform Troubleshooting and Recovery Tasks Using the

Recovery Console

The Windows XP Professional Recovery Console is a text mode command interpreter

that you can use to access NTFS, FAT, and FAT32 volumes without starting Windows XP

Professional. The Recovery Console allows you to perform a variety of troubleshooting

and recovery tasks, including the following:

■

Copying files between hard disks and from a floppy disk to a hard disk (but not

from hard disk to a floppy disk), which allows you replace or remove items that

might be affecting the boot process, or to retrieve user data from an unsalvageable

computer

■

Starting and stopping services

■

Adding, removing, and formatting partitions on the hard disk

■

Repairing the MBR or boot sector of a hard disk or volume

■

Restoring the Registry

This section explains how to install, start, and use the Recovery Console and presents

the major Recovery Console commands.

!

Exam Tip The Recovery Console provides an excellent way to access hard disks when the

operating system will not boot. You can use the Recovery Console to access all partitions on

a drive, regardless of the file system.

How to Install the Recovery Console

To install the Recovery Console, insert the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM into

your CD-ROM drive, and close the Windows XP Professional CD dialog box if it opens.

Open a Run dialog box or a Command Prompt window in Windows XP Professional,

and run the command drive:\i386\Winnt32.exe /cmdcons, where drive represents the