Recovery Console

Recovery Console is a character-mode environment that you can run directly from the Windows XP Professional operating system CD or for x86-based systems, install as a startup option. Unlike normal or safe mode, the windows graphical user interface (GUI) is not available within recovery console. Recovery console provides a set of command for advance users who are comfortable working outside the windows GUI environment.

If you cannot start windows xp professional in safe mode or normal mode, recovery console allows you to perform many troubleshooting and maintenance tasks, such as disabling problem drivers and services that you suspect are causing startup problem. Recovery console is separate from the command-line Cmd.exe shell and grants limited access to local NTFS and file allocation table (FAT) formated volumes