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Boot to Command Prompt

G

Grandcheapskate

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
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808
Location
New Jersey, USA
Hi Guys,
I have a machine I am trying to fix for a friend. It will no longer even try to boot off the hard drive but I can boot off a CD. I believe the HD contains Win7.

I booted off a Win98 CD which allowed me to boot directly to a command prompt. I can then do an FDISK and see the HD is set up with both non-DOS and NTFS partitions. Of course with Win98 I can read neither. So I need to boot with at least a Win2000 or WinXP startup CD. However, booting with these CDs does not allow me to boot to a command prompt.

So how can I boot off a Win2000 or WinXP CD and get to a command prompt without having to install the OS to the hard drive?

Thanks...Joe
 
I think the only way to get to a command prompt with any NT-based version of Windows is to go into the recovery console. I'm not sure how far you need to go with the installation before you will be able to get there.
 
From a DOS prompt you could run NTFS4DOS or 'NTFS Reader for DOS' to get into the NTFS partition and look at and copy the files.
 
Wow so much for "vintage" :p

While booting, keep tapping the F8 key, do you get to a boot menu?
1st option is repair your pc but you need either the OEM recovery CD or a recovery partition on the hard drive.
If the hard drive is initial OEM it probably has a recovery partition.
Another option is safe mode which bypasses most of the drivers or safe mode with command prompt which you may or may not achieve based on the policy set in Windows.
This isn't fun because this is my real job, not my hobby:(

Larry G
 
I would've thought any modern live linux distro should be able to mount the hdd if you want to retrieve any data, and copy it to some sort of removable media prior to reinstalling Win 7 from the recovery partition.
 
Caluser2000 said:
I would've thought any modern live linux distro should be able to mount the hdd if you want to retrieve any data, and copy it to some sort of removable media prior to reinstalling Win 7 from the recovery partition.
Click to expand...

That's what I would do (and have done), but I understand that many folks are afraid of Linux... :)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Why not give HIren's Boot CD a go--or any of the other Rescue CDs?
Click to expand...

Thanks to all who replied.

I just created a Hiren's Boot CD and successfully booted from it. It does seem as if I can read the HD so now I'll see if I can determine why this PC will not boot off the hard drive. It's an eMachine (Oh no!) and I do not have any recovery disks for it.

When I have the HD as the first boot device, all I get is a beep, then the message "Hit DEL for Setup, F12 for Boot Menu" for about 2 seconds. The screen clears and the process starts again. Hitting DEL or F12 does take me to the associated screen. I think it has Win7 although I have no idea what version. Maybe I can try the recovery console of my Win7 DVD.

Thanks...Joe
 
What is the menu with F12? Does it offer a recovery option? At that point it will look for a recovery partition. I bet the eMachine uses a recovery partition. If you are just trying to get files from the drive like pictures, etc you can copy them off first if you
want with the boot CD to maybe a usb stick. Then try the recovery option. It might overwrite all the data because it is like a partition to partition ghost copy but if your hard drive is ok it will be successful. Actually, before you do a recovery get into the bios and look for a hard drive diagnostic. It's non-destructive and will tell you if hard drive is physically ok.

PS - viruses will actually corrupt the boot partition and do the repeated boot you describe. Recovery will overwrite that.

Larry G
 
The F12 did not offer me a recovery option.

One of the options while using the Hiren CD is to boot off the hard drive. I decided to try that option not expecting it to work but it did - somewhat. The machine immediately started the recovery process asking me whether I wanted to do a complete factory restore or a factory restore while preserving data. I choose the later and so far it's looking good.

I think I saw a passing message that one of the NTFS boot partitions is not writable, so maybe that was the original problem. Either way it looks like I will be able to rescue this PC without the need to load it from scratch.

Thanks...Joe
 
Good, somehow it activated the recovery option. I think finding the right keypress during boot would have done the same thing. With recover and save data, it doesn't do a partition move but a pure Windows re-install from the Windows OEM partition.
It's all on the same hard drive. Hopefully the boot partition got corrected because a virus can change the signature to make the os think it's foreign which would be treated as r/o. Good luck.
 
Unfortunately something has gone wrong. I rebooted a few times with no issue yesterday. Today I decided to run Windows Update (manually for Win7 Home) to apply all the critical fixes. So I connected the PC to my router and booted without a problem. I then let Windows start to download and apply the fixes. I turned the monitor off during this process to have breakfast and when I returned, the PC was off...not a good sign. When I tried to boot, I was right back to the same problem as before.

I have rebooted with the Hiren CD to the Mini XP environment and can still access the HD. I then rebooted with the Hiren CD and asked for it to boot from the hard drive and once again I am automatically taken to eMachines Recovery Management where I can again restore the OS and preserve data.

What do you think this could be? An HD going bad? I think I will write out all the data I want to save to a USB drive and then restore again.

Thanks...Joe
 
You need to *watch* WU so you can see where it kicks you out. Otherwise you'll be forever clueless. :)

Are you possibly running an unauthorized version of Windows? That could cause WU to give the machine the boot.
 
Stone said:
You need to *watch* WU so you can see where it kicks you out. Otherwise you'll be forever clueless. :)

Are you possibly running an unauthorized version of Windows? That could cause WU to give the machine the boot.
Click to expand...

I doubt it is an unauthorized version of Windows because it is using the eMachine provided restore software. I am about to restart the recovery process again although I may this time choose the "complete restore" option which wipes out the entire HD partition since I have copied out all the important user data.

The option I used before, which restores the OS but retains data, says it will not remove persistent viruses or malware.

Thanks...Joe
 
I would strongly suspect registry problems--the Achilles' heel of Windows. A repair doesn't change much of the registry. You could go through and disable the unneeded services and "run" and "runonce" entries and give it another try.

Can you boot into Safe mode?
 
Sometimes during Windows Update when the pc reboots it actually shuts off. I have seen that at work many times. Before you nuke it with complete restore, if you want to investigate further and can get into Windows via your Hiren CD
try malwarebytes.org which has a free option if you get thru all their sales bullsh__. Or look for something called System Ninja but that might not have a free option. Another one is CCleaner which is free and good at cleaning registry like Mr Chuck suggested.
Those are ones we use at work. Start with Malwarebytes. Good luck.

PS - of course whatever you use, do a full scan and if it finds problems, repeat the scan over and over until no reported problems. From our experience, System Ninja is the best.

PSS - sorry, brain won't stop. Windows Updates plug security holes but unfortunately don't clean what already got thru the hole. In fact sometimes it triggers the virus. Kind of a chicken/egg scenario.
Now that the hole is plugged, if you get the virus cleaned off it probably won't be able to return. Which also means if you do a complete restore you are a "sitting duck" for viruses until the Windows Updates are all done
so do NOTHING except the Updates until ALL are done.
 
Last edited:
Chuck(G) said:
Can you boot into Safe mode?
Click to expand...

No. Once it goes into that "loop", all I get is a beep and the logo screen for about 1-2 seconds. Then the cycle repeats. No other key presses seem to do anything. It's odd I could boot to the hard drive from the Hiren CD but not without it, even if the PC went directly to a system restore.

I did do a complete "restore to factory settings" after I copied out all the user data, which wasn't much at all. Better to wipe it clean and let it reset. Doing a bunch of diagnostics to save the little data that was there isn't worth it. Basically the machine is used for internet access so there are only 2-3 installed programs.

Next I'll run a couple disk scans and see if anything turns up.

Then I'll try to connect to the internet and run Windows Update applying only the important fixes. If that goes okay, I'll copy back the user data and cross my fingers.

Thanks...Joe
 
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