Re: How do you get to the DOS prompt using the Recovery CD
From: cquirke (MVP Win9x) (cquirkenews_at_nospam.mvps.org)
Date: 04/21/04
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Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 01:45:43 +0200
On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:49:45 +0200, Thorsten Matzner
>George Ratcliff <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>>I turned on my computer and a message came up the state "system
>>not fully in stalled, run setup again." I want to recover some data.
>>How can I get to the DOS prompt.
NT has no DOS mode, so you'd have to run that from a DOS mode boot
diskette. The Win98 Emergency Boot Disk is good, else try
www.bootdisk.com for other options and approaches.
>Either boot to the Safe Mode with Command Prompt or use a DOS boot
>disk to start the computer,
Safe mode runs Windows. Windows writes to the HD.
>"How to Use System Files to Create a Boot Disk to Guard Against Being
>Unable to Start Windows XP"
>(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314079)
>"A Description of the Safe Boot Mode Options in Windows XP"
>(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315222)
In this case, we have a very worrying message that suggests HD
corruption, and the poster understandably wants to get data off safely
before anything else goes wrong. BAD time to run Windows!!
He's asking about DOS prompt, but there isn't one in NT, of course.
What he really wants is a maintenance OS, and ... there isn't one, if
he's on NTFS. At this point I'll paste from a previous post...
You can test the HD at the physical level using OS-agnostic
diagnostics from your HD vendor's site. Stick to the non-destructive
tests, i.e. the ones that do not write to the HD, and don't "thrash"
(stress-test) the HD until it's evacuated.
If the HD is physically OK, you have one battle to fight - namely,
repairing the partition logic so the HD's volumes are revealed, and
then repairing internal file system logic so data can be evacuated.
You should use a *raw* HD imaging app to prepare a copy of the entire
HD on a new HD to work on, so you can "undo" if you make things worse;
if that's not possible, then keep a rigorous log of what you do so you
can undo changes and so on.
If the HD is physically ill, it may not survive the imaging process
(sick HDs can have an hour or less of spin life left), and half an
image is no cigar. So in those cases, I start by "cherry picking" the
data I really want to see again, then copy the image off, then work on
the image on a known-good HD ("just one bad sector" = known-BAD)
If your file system is FATxx, you can use Odi's LFN tools (free
download) to evacuate the HD from DOS mode. These are stand-alone
replacements for the usual DOS file commands than can "see" Long File
Names even from raw DOS. The syntax...
LCopy D:\* C:\SICKHD /A /S
...will copy *everything* off D: to C:\SICKHD, and will step over dead
sectors with a minimum of retry thrashing and drama.
If your file system is NTFS, well, this is where that bites you in the
ass. Goodbye LFNs, as Odi won't work through an interposing driver.
www.systeminternals.com have a free NTFS reading driver for DOS mode,
but no LFNs, it hogs 300k DOS memory, and it doesn't traverse the tree
properly - so exect to have to chase one twig of the tree at a time.
Slightly less awful is ReadNTFS from www.NTFS.com which is also free;
it's a non-TSR stand-alone app that lets you view and copy files or
subtrees. Takes ages to list each dir and doesn't "remember" dirs
it's been in, so you will come to hate MS's habit of using
gratuitously deeply-nested paths.
You can use BING (www.bootitng.com) to do "smart" partition images,
but not sure if it has the all-inclusive "dumb" raw mode that you need
here. A smart image relies on file system logic to know what to
include, which isn't what you want when that logic is known to be bad
and you need to repair it. Not only would smart imaging leave out
material that isn't pointed to by the file system logic, it will
rearrange material on the destination based on file system logic.
If your volumes are FATxx, then the data recovery section of my site
may help you or your helpers. FATxx is a simple and well-documented
file system and recovery tools abound; FWIW, what I use is Norton
DiskEdit from the utils (the CD is still unused, all I need are the
emergency diskettes from the package).
If your volumes are NTFS, then there are recovery tools, but none that
I know of that are free; usually they are can't-save or time-bombed
demos. The file system is not documented by MS and changes whenever
MS feels like it, so FUD abounds; the closest thing to decent
byte-level docs are from reverse-engineering by the Linux community.
Final tip: While the HD or file system is sick, STAY OUT OF WINDOWS !!
>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Running Windows-based av to kill active malware is like striking
a match to see if what you are standing in is water or petrol.
>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
- Next message: Walter Clayton: "Re: Administrator vs limited account"
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