Enhance your XP installation by DK!!
|Part I|Part II | Part III|Part IV |

Part I

Most have installed XP with success - else they would not been here.
 But there is more to do to have a good running system, which can be recovered in case of an malfunction.

 Recently,  someone  installed XP, but after a while, he was unable to 
 boot from disk.

 Unfortunately, his CD also refused to boot - so he could not start the recover   console, nor access it. The system was dead and unable to boot and had to be  reinstalled.

 One of the first steps, after you installed your system, is to install the recovery  console.


 What is  this? is what i can realy hear now.

 Well, lets install this beast first, it will not harm your system, but help you out of 
 some troubles later.

 Start your commandprompt, and issue the following command.
 D:\i386\winnt32 /cmdcons 

 Assuming your XP -CD is in drive D: and the path to the 
 executables is also i386 (if you have a full falvored CD, and not only 
 a crapt "recover cd from your vendor.)
 Btw: this works not only on XP, but W2K too. 

 A windows  pops up and tells you, what is going on now. 
 If you are concerned now with the next poping up window, 
 just press [ESC] or click cancel - else let it run if you have an 
 internetconnection available.

 What you need at least, is the install cd in your drive.
 After some seconds, XP shows you the successfully installation 

 If you boot next time, your bootmenu is enhanced by an item named recovery  console.

 In case you have W2K on the same box, it will let you choose between XP and W2K,   to launch that console.

 This console is a simple cmd interpreter (aka. CommandPrompt)
 with some more features in it, to awaken an otherwise dead system.

 Start it, have a look at the commands, type HELP at the prompt and get overwhelmed
 by the list. Getting additional help for an command is fairly easy.
 Simply type 
 help diskpart ( as an example) to get info about usable parameters or a general  usage.

 Lastly, if you had a look at several commands, type EXIT to quit the 
 console and force a reboot.

 What is  the benefit of installing this?
 Well, easy enough - if your system refuses to boot because of an damaged
 driver or dead registry (which can happen), your GUI won't boot anymore.
 This little console however does not rely on above things, thus boots your system  whenever the masterbootrecord is not damaged or the hd not otherwise complete  corrupted.

 The commands you have now available, are very powerful, you can scamble up 
 your system easily. Therefore this should be used not by total novice users, but the 
 experienced one has powerful options to recover his system after an hickup again.

 One more important hint, if you run W2K and XP on the same box:
 Make a copy of the files in your Bootdrive! as there are
 arcldr.exe
 arcsetup.exe
 ntdetect.com
 ntldr

 This files get changed during the installation of the recovery console.
 Although your W2K system will run as before, it might show a stopCode failure,
 if you are going to shut down the box from W2K as before.
 So keep above copied files in a safe place before installing the console, and 
 reaply them afterwards if you encounter the problems mentioned above.

In an next tip, i'll tell how to use XP's recover feature right from the GUI, to move your system back to a previous and functional known point.

:Download the Full Guide :
 Dark Knight~