This article primarily applies to Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Various system issues can prevent a system from booting properly and can be fixed through an offline file system check and an integrity check/repair of critical operating system files. To perform this check, it is necessary to access the recovery console from the Windows installation media. I will demonstrate this using the Windows 7 ISO.