Recovery console - access denied?

[Eric McG]

For security reasons, the default behavior of the Recovery Console only allows
access to the root of the C drive and %WinDir% folder & sub-folders.

In order to gain access to other folders some security changes must be made
while in Windows and changes to some environmental variables while in the RC.

First the Windows settings: Click on Control Panel | Administrative Tools |
Local
Security Policy | Local Policies | Security Options. Scroll down the list
and find the two items dealing with the Recovery Console. One is "Allow
administrative logon" and the other is "Allow floppy copy and access to all
files and folders". Enable both of these policies.

Secondly, unlike the above one time settings, the following commands must be
entered each time you enter into the Recovery Console. These are entered
separately:

set allowremovablemedia = true
set allowallpaths = true

You can now access all folders on the system.

You can type "set", w/o quotes, at the command prompt to review all current
settings.

For reference, here's an MSKB article on this subject:

Description of the SET Command in Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;235364

 

[Trickster]

Hi. I have Windows 2000 Pro with SP4 and all the latest hotfixes. I have run
into a strange problem with some files that I can't delete because they are
apparently in use and rebooting didn't fix it. So I decided to use the
Recovery Console to delete them. I logged on to the RC, tried to switch to
"C:\documents and settings" and got "acess denied". It only lets me see
files inside c:\winnt although it's set to allow access to floppy and all
drives. Any ideas?

 

[Peter Forster [MVP]]

Hello Trickster!

Hi. I have Windows 2000 Pro with SP4 and all the latest hotfixes. I
have run into a strange problem with some files that I can't delete
because they are apparently in use and rebooting didn't fix it. So I
decided to use the Recovery Console to delete them. I logged on to
the RC, tried to switch to "C:\documents and settings" and got "acess
denied". It only lets me see files inside c:\winnt although it's set
to allow access to floppy and all drives. Any ideas?

This is by design:
Description of the Windows 2000 Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;229716

From this article:
*************************
Restrictions and Limitations of the Command Console
From the Windows Recovery Console you can only use the following folders:
The root folder
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
*************************

Boot the computer in Save mode, then you should be able to delete this
files.