XP Home Recovery Console

[Stark Matthews]

I'm running XP Home, there's a problem with the system and I need to get
into the recovery console to fix it. When I try to access the recovery
console I'm asked for the Administrator password. All my documentation says
it's blank, and Microsoft says to just press Enter, but when I do it just
asks me for the password again. I've verified that the password is blank
with that Linux NT change password boot disk. So I have two questions:

1. How do I get into the Recovery Console?

2. If I can't, and I have to reinstall XP Home, is there a way of
reinstalling without losing all the settings and files in the Documents and
Settings folder?

Bare in mind that I can't get access to the system, it just keeps rebooting
without ever getting into XP, both in normal startup and in all the other
safe mode options.

Thank you for your time.

Email response is prefered: (e-mail address removed)

 

[Sam]

I would recommend slamming in another hard drive and using MS-DOS to
retrieve any important files. Or if the files are small but numerous, you
could use floppy disks.

If you need a bit more 'how-to' on running MS-DOS then please post again.