Windows XP Recovery Console - Accessing non-system drives

Hello all,

I have an interesting problem I'm hoping someone here can help me out
with.

My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes it to
Windows, only to bios.

I have started the recovery console and can sucessfully access the
system drive. Running fixmbr returns a messages that the master boot
record is invalid. Answering yes to the prompt to attempt to fix it
returns a message that the mbr was fixed. But, subsequent fixmbr runs
return the same invalid mbr message. I have verified the device and
that is correct.

Chkdsk returns a message about unrecoverable errors.

Fixboot indicates that the boot record has been sucessfully repaired.

None of these efforts have corrected the problem (any other
suggestions are welcome).

I would like to copy the contents of my "corrupt" system drive to
another drive, then rebuild the system drive and put the files I can't
re-install back on the system drive after I get the rebuild done.

The problem I'm having is I get "Access is denied" messages when
trying to create directories on the non-system drive. As a matter of
fact, I can't even run a "dir" command on the non-system drives from
the recovery console. I'm not sure how to get around or remedy this.
I am logged on as administrator in the recovery console (I can
successfully pass the admin/pwd challenge).

To me, what I'm trying to do seems like really basic stuff (copy files
from one drive to another), but this access issue is bugging me.

Just of reference, the only way I can see the data on the corrupt
system drive is via recovery console. I have full rights to the
corrupt system drive via the recovery console. I can sucessfully
create and delete directories and delete files.

All of these errors are the apparent result from a power failure at my
house (a very quick blip).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg Wilkerson

The "unrecoverable files" doesnt look good,at this point run the hard drive
MS-DOS chk utility from the drives mfg,they all have them.Download it to a
formatted MS-DOS floppy,boot to floppy,run the tests....

"Greg Wilkerson" wrote:

Hello all,

I have an interesting problem I'm hoping someone here can help me out
with.

My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes it to
Windows, only to bios.

I have started the recovery console and can sucessfully access the
system drive. Running fixmbr returns a messages that the master boot
record is invalid. Answering yes to the prompt to attempt to fix it
returns a message that the mbr was fixed. But, subsequent fixmbr runs
return the same invalid mbr message. I have verified the device and
that is correct.

Chkdsk returns a message about unrecoverable errors.

Fixboot indicates that the boot record has been sucessfully repaired.

None of these efforts have corrected the problem (any other
suggestions are welcome).

I would like to copy the contents of my "corrupt" system drive to
another drive, then rebuild the system drive and put the files I can't
re-install back on the system drive after I get the rebuild done.

The problem I'm having is I get "Access is denied" messages when
trying to create directories on the non-system drive. As a matter of
fact, I can't even run a "dir" command on the non-system drives from
the recovery console. I'm not sure how to get around or remedy this.
I am logged on as administrator in the recovery console (I can
successfully pass the admin/pwd challenge).

To me, what I'm trying to do seems like really basic stuff (copy files
from one drive to another), but this access issue is bugging me.

Just of reference, the only way I can see the data on the corrupt
system drive is via recovery console. I have full rights to the
corrupt system drive via the recovery console. I can sucessfully
create and delete directories and delete files.

All of these errors are the apparent result from a power failure at my
house (a very quick blip).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg Wilkerson

Hello Andrew,

The "uncoverable files" error encountered on chkdsk was fixed by
running fixboot on the drive from the recover console. The
manufacuter's diagnostics tests run successfully. Althought I'm not
sure on this yet, I don't think this is a hardware issue.

Thanks,

Greg

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 22:21:02 -0700, Andrew E.
wrote:

The "unrecoverable files" doesnt look good,at this point run the hard drive
MS-DOS chk utility from the drives mfg,they all have them.Download it to a
formatted MS-DOS floppy,boot to floppy,run the tests....

"Greg Wilkerson" wrote:

Hello all,

I have an interesting problem I'm hoping someone here can help me out
with.

My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes it to
Windows, only to bios.

I have started the recovery console and can sucessfully access the
system drive. Running fixmbr returns a messages that the master boot
record is invalid. Answering yes to the prompt to attempt to fix it
returns a message that the mbr was fixed. But, subsequent fixmbr runs
return the same invalid mbr message. I have verified the device and
that is correct.

Chkdsk returns a message about unrecoverable errors.

Fixboot indicates that the boot record has been sucessfully repaired.

None of these efforts have corrected the problem (any other
suggestions are welcome).

I would like to copy the contents of my "corrupt" system drive to
another drive, then rebuild the system drive and put the files I can't
re-install back on the system drive after I get the rebuild done.

The problem I'm having is I get "Access is denied" messages when
trying to create directories on the non-system drive. As a matter of
fact, I can't even run a "dir" command on the non-system drives from
the recovery console. I'm not sure how to get around or remedy this.
I am logged on as administrator in the recovery console (I can
successfully pass the admin/pwd challenge).

To me, what I'm trying to do seems like really basic stuff (copy files
from one drive to another), but this access issue is bugging me.

Just of reference, the only way I can see the data on the corrupt
system drive is via recovery console. I have full rights to the
corrupt system drive via the recovery console. I can sucessfully
create and delete directories and delete files.

All of these errors are the apparent result from a power failure at my
house (a very quick blip).

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Greg Wilkerson

Greg Wilkerson wrote:

Hello all,

I have an interesting problem I'm hoping someone here can help me out
with.

My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes it to
Windows, only to bios.

I have started the recovery console and can sucessfully access the
system drive. Running fixmbr returns a messages that the master boot
record is invalid. Answering yes to the prompt to attempt to fix it
returns a message that the mbr was fixed. But, subsequent fixmbr runs
return the same invalid mbr message. I have verified the device and
that is correct.

Chkdsk returns a message about unrecoverable errors.

Fixboot indicates that the boot record has been sucessfully repaired.

None of these efforts have corrected the problem (any other
suggestions are welcome).

I would like to copy the contents of my "corrupt" system drive to
another drive, then rebuild the system drive and put the files I can't
re-install back on the system drive after I get the rebuild done.

The problem I'm having is I get "Access is denied" messages when
trying to create directories on the non-system drive. As a matter of
fact, I can't even run a "dir" command on the non-system drives from
the recovery console. I'm not sure how to get around or remedy this.
I am logged on as administrator in the recovery console (I can
successfully pass the admin/pwd challenge).

To me, what I'm trying to do seems like really basic stuff (copy files
from one drive to another), but this access issue is bugging me.

Just of reference, the only way I can see the data on the corrupt
system drive is via recovery console. I have full rights to the
corrupt system drive via the recovery console. I can sucessfully
create and delete directories and delete files.

All of these errors are the apparent result from a power failure at my
house (a very quick blip).

Any help would be appreciated.

The directory access with the Recovery Console is restricted. From the
Recovery Console you can access these folders:

- The root folder of any drive
- The %SystemRoot% folder and the subfolders of the Windows installation
you are currently logged on to
- The Cmdcons folder
- Removable media drives such as CD-ROM drives

The dir command will, or should fail on other directories, that is a
security feature of the Recovery Console. That security feature can be
changed by way of Group Policy settings when you are booted to the
working Windows installation, it cannot be changed after the fact, if
you cannot gain normal access to the Windows installation you cannot
change the restriction.

The Recovery Console is not really meant to and has never been meant to
be used for file recovery, it is primarily designed to be used as a tool
to repair Windows. While you can use special techniques to copy files
to or from the allowed folders it is a rather primitive way of copying
files. File recovery should be done from your data backups, of course
you don't have backups or else you wouldn't be here asking those
questions...

To recover your files use a Live CD, like a Bart's PE disk, a Linux live
CD or an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. You can also mount the disk to
another Windows2000/XP installation and attempt to recover your files
that way. If you mount the disk to another Windows installation you may
have to grant yourself necessary permissions to the files or Take
Ownership of the files in order to be able to gain access to them.

If the above methods are not feasible you can do a Repair Install or a
Parallel Install of Windows to attempt to recover your files. These two
methods would be the least preferred methods, only to be done if you
have no choice.

You didn't really indicate why the computer continuously reboots, you
simply said: " My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes
it to Windows, only to bios". I can tell you with almost 99.99%
certainty that the boot process makes it to Windows, it isn't stuck in a
reboot loop at the BIOS, I have not really ever heard of a computer
being in a reboot loop during the POST or before the handover of the
boot process to the partition boot loader. If things fail during that
phase of the boot process the computer usually just halts without
rebooting. There are a few things that can done to try to identify the
cause of the reboot loop. Did you try the available F8 boot options?
Did you disable the "Automatically Reboot..." at the F8 screen? By way
of remote registry edits there are also some entries in the registry
that can be verified to see if the problem can be corrected.

John

Hi John,

First, thanks for the detailed and informative response.

I didn't go into the real details in my original post because I didn't
know if I would get any usable responses.

I'll go into a little more detail, now.

The phyical drive the OS is on is partitioned into 3 logical drives.
The OS resides on one of those partitions.

I have been getting various results from chkdsk. In one case, I
received the earlier mentioned "unrecoverable errors" message. But,
after booting to the recovery console and running fixboot, the chkdsk
runs with no errors.

I agree that the system isn't looping within the bios. After reading
your post, I did try a safe mode start. I can get to the safe mode
prompts, but select "safe mode" initiates a reboot (vicious circle
begins again). So does booting to "Last Known Good Configuration".
So, a safe mode recovery doesn't look good. I need to look into this
"Disable automatic restart on system failure" option listed in the
safe mode menu. I can't imagine what I am going to gain from that
option, but hey, I might learn something.

I have to bootlog option turned on, but it doesn't appear to writing
anything to the problem drive when I try to boot from it. Are the
other files I can check? I searched the drive for files modified
within the last day and the results returned nothing informative.

I had a drive laying around that had xp-sp2 on it. So, I added that
drive to the system and booted to that. Then, I set the group policy
to allow access to the drives. That allowed me to at least get to all
the logical drives in the system (6, I think).

That also allows me to recover all the files I need to. I ended up
running a backup of the entire drive, plus I copied the "documents and
setting" directory outright. So, I have at least limited the data
loss to 0 (way cool).

I did make an ASR disk for this computer after I upgraded to the disk
configuration before this problem started. I hadn't thought about
using that. I'll have to dig that up.

As it stands now, it looks like I'm going to have to rebuild the OS.
That's ok, though. It's been a few years since I did that and things
will get cleaned up some.

I'm not a systems guy, but a DBA. I can see value in the fixboot and
fixmbr, but the restrictions on the rest of the commands baffle me.
Maybe a system guy has a different view (probably so).

The restrictions on the copy command are dissappointing. I can
certainly understand why, but not having the option to enable more
functionality limits the usefulness. I wish Microsoft would quit
imposing its security morals on me. Give me the option of completely
destroying my system. It's my computer.

Thanks again,

Greg Wilkerson

On Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:28:57 -0300, John John
wrote:

Greg Wilkerson wrote:

Hello all,

I have an interesting problem I'm hoping someone here can help me out
with.

My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes it to
Windows, only to bios.

I have started the recovery console and can sucessfully access the
system drive. Running fixmbr returns a messages that the master boot
record is invalid. Answering yes to the prompt to attempt to fix it
returns a message that the mbr was fixed. But, subsequent fixmbr runs
return the same invalid mbr message. I have verified the device and
that is correct.

Chkdsk returns a message about unrecoverable errors.

Fixboot indicates that the boot record has been sucessfully repaired.

None of these efforts have corrected the problem (any other
suggestions are welcome).

I would like to copy the contents of my "corrupt" system drive to
another drive, then rebuild the system drive and put the files I can't
re-install back on the system drive after I get the rebuild done.

The problem I'm having is I get "Access is denied" messages when
trying to create directories on the non-system drive. As a matter of
fact, I can't even run a "dir" command on the non-system drives from
the recovery console. I'm not sure how to get around or remedy this.
I am logged on as administrator in the recovery console (I can
successfully pass the admin/pwd challenge).

To me, what I'm trying to do seems like really basic stuff (copy files
from one drive to another), but this access issue is bugging me.

Just of reference, the only way I can see the data on the corrupt
system drive is via recovery console. I have full rights to the
corrupt system drive via the recovery console. I can sucessfully
create and delete directories and delete files.

All of these errors are the apparent result from a power failure at my
house (a very quick blip).

Any help would be appreciated.

The directory access with the Recovery Console is restricted. From the
Recovery Console you can access these folders:

- The root folder of any drive
- The %SystemRoot% folder and the subfolders of the Windows installation
you are currently logged on to
- The Cmdcons folder
- Removable media drives such as CD-ROM drives

The dir command will, or should fail on other directories, that is a
security feature of the Recovery Console. That security feature can be
changed by way of Group Policy settings when you are booted to the
working Windows installation, it cannot be changed after the fact, if
you cannot gain normal access to the Windows installation you cannot
change the restriction.

The Recovery Console is not really meant to and has never been meant to
be used for file recovery, it is primarily designed to be used as a tool
to repair Windows. While you can use special techniques to copy files
to or from the allowed folders it is a rather primitive way of copying
files. File recovery should be done from your data backups, of course
you don't have backups or else you wouldn't be here asking those
questions...

To recover your files use a Live CD, like a Bart's PE disk, a Linux live
CD or an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. You can also mount the disk to
another Windows2000/XP installation and attempt to recover your files
that way. If you mount the disk to another Windows installation you may
have to grant yourself necessary permissions to the files or Take
Ownership of the files in order to be able to gain access to them.

If the above methods are not feasible you can do a Repair Install or a
Parallel Install of Windows to attempt to recover your files. These two
methods would be the least preferred methods, only to be done if you
have no choice.

You didn't really indicate why the computer continuously reboots, you
simply said: " My system is in a continuous reboot mode. I never makes
it to Windows, only to bios". I can tell you with almost 99.99%
certainty that the boot process makes it to Windows, it isn't stuck in a
reboot loop at the BIOS, I have not really ever heard of a computer
being in a reboot loop during the POST or before the handover of the
boot process to the partition boot loader. If things fail during that
phase of the boot process the computer usually just halts without
rebooting. There are a few things that can done to try to identify the
cause of the reboot loop. Did you try the available F8 boot options?
Did you disable the "Automatically Reboot..." at the F8 screen? By way
of remote registry edits there are also some entries in the registry
that can be verified to see if the problem can be corrected.

John

Greg Wilkerson wrote:

Hi John,

First, thanks for the detailed and informative response.

I didn't go into the real details in my original post because I didn't
know if I would get any usable responses.

I'll go into a little more detail, now.

The phyical drive the OS is on is partitioned into 3 logical drives.
The OS resides on one of those partitions.

I have been getting various results from chkdsk. In one case, I
received the earlier mentioned "unrecoverable errors" message. But,
after booting to the recovery console and running fixboot, the chkdsk
runs with no errors.

I agree that the system isn't looping within the bios. After reading
your post, I did try a safe mode start. I can get to the safe mode
prompts, but select "safe mode" initiates a reboot (vicious circle
begins again). So does booting to "Last Known Good Configuration".
So, a safe mode recovery doesn't look good. I need to look into this
"Disable automatic restart on system failure" option listed in the
safe mode menu. I can't imagine what I am going to gain from that
option, but hey, I might learn something.

*** If the computer is giving a bugcheck error message (blue screening)
and you have the computer set to autoreboot on crash you cannot see the
contents of the bugcheck message, the computer simply goes into a reboot
loop. If the boot failure does give a bugcheck error message the
information in the message may point to the cause of the problem.


I have to bootlog option turned on, but it doesn't appear to writing
anything to the problem drive when I try to boot from it. Are the
other files I can check? I searched the drive for files modified
within the last day and the results returned nothing informative.

*** That's a bit like poking around in the dark. Without better
information it is a crapshot suggesting that such a file or other is at
fault.


I had a drive laying around that had xp-sp2 on it. So, I added that
drive to the system and booted to that. Then, I set the group policy
to allow access to the drives. That allowed me to at least get to all
the logical drives in the system (6, I think).

That also allows me to recover all the files I need to. I ended up
running a backup of the entire drive, plus I copied the "documents and
setting" directory outright. So, I have at least limited the data
loss to 0 (way cool).

I did make an ASR disk for this computer after I upgraded to the disk
configuration before this problem started. I hadn't thought about
using that. I'll have to dig that up.

As it stands now, it looks like I'm going to have to rebuild the OS.
That's ok, though. It's been a few years since I did that and things
will get cleaned up some.

I'm not a systems guy, but a DBA. I can see value in the fixboot and
fixmbr, but the restrictions on the rest of the commands baffle me.
Maybe a system guy has a different view (probably so).

*** The Recovey Console commands are not disabled, if you can log on to
the Windows installation (via the RC) you will have all the commands
available. Just type HELP and press enter. For help on commands use
the /? switch, example: chkdsk /?


The restrictions on the copy command are dissappointing. I can
certainly understand why, but not having the option to enable more
functionality limits the usefulness. I wish Microsoft would quit
imposing its security morals on me. Give me the option of completely
destroying my system. It's my computer.

*** As mentioned earlier, the copy command is not restricted. The
restriction is on what you can access and copy. I understand that you
may find it too restrictive for your use but the Recovery Console is a
repair tool. To repair Windows you only need access to the operating
system folders. There is nothing that you can do in the users data
folders to fix Windows. The IT or techs guys don't need access to
confidential or sensitive user data, their job is to fix Windows, not to
snoop about in comapany or user files. When you look at it from that
point of view you then see that the restrictions make sense, and as I
said in my other post, the restriction can be lifted if you want to. In
my opinion it is best to have the restriction apply by default.



Thanks again,

You're welcome, good luck.

John