2 Ways- How to Boot into Command Prompt When Windows 10 Won’t Boot?

Command Prompt can help fix corrupt files, disk errors, and network problems on a system. But what if your PC doesn’t boot normally? In this post, I’ll explain how to boot into Command Prompt when Windows 10 doesn’t successfully boot.

Posted by @Michael December 17, 2024 Updated By @Michael May 12, 2023

How to boot Windows into Command Prompt?

“Help. My system is down and I tried to fix it with command lines in Command Prompt. However, my Windows 10 won’t even boot at all so I can’t just type ‘cmd’ in the search box to bring up the Command Prompt Window. How to boot into Command Prompt under this circumstance? Does anyone have any ideas?

Overview of Command Prompt

Command Prompt, which is also referred to as CMD, is a command line interpreter application available in most Windows operating systems. People use it to execute entered commands most of which automate tasks via scripts and batch files, perform advanced administrative functions, and troubleshoot or solve certain sorts of Windows errors.

In most cases, to fix system issues, users can access Command Prompt by typing “cmd” in the search box on the taskbar. However, it will be another story when Windows 10 won’t boot at all. So, in the following tutorial, I provided the top 2 ways to help boot into Command Prompt when Windows 10 doesn’t launch successfully.

 

Boot into Command Prompt in 2 ways

There’re 2 ways to access Command Prompt when Windows 10 won’t boot. In the first way, users can access CMD from the Troubleshoot menu while in the second way, users access it from the installation media or recovery environment. The second way should be used when you can’t even see the Windows 10 bootloader at all.

Way 1. Windows 10 Troubleshoot menu

This method is taken on condition that you can see the Windows 10 logo and the loading animation after hitting the power button on your screen. Basically, you’re stuck in a boot loop where the OS keeps restarting.

1. Hit the power button on your PC to turn it on.

2. Wait until you see the Windows 10 logo.

3. Long-press the power button to force the OS to shut down.

4. Turn on your PC again.

5. Repeat the steps above until you see the Troubleshoot menu.

6. Once the Troubleshoot menu pops up, navigate to Advanced Options > Command Prompt

Way 2. Windows 10 installation media/Recovery Environment

To apply this way, you must have a handy Windows 10 installation media and regardless the version as long as you have it.

1. Turn off the PC.

2. Turn on the PC, and boot into BIOS.

3. Set the USB stick as the first boot device.

4. Turn off the PC again.

5. Connect the installation media which is usually a USB to your computer.

6. Turn on the PC again.

7. Allow the initial Windows 10 installation screen to load.

8. Hit the Repair Computer option.

 

9. Follow System Recovery Options > Command Prompt.

Bonus: Fix it with a third-party tool when Windows 10 won’t boot

If you want to fix the system error when Windows 10 won’t boot, factually, there’s a much easier and more feasible tool as an alternative to DiskPart – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. With this powerful software, you can create a bootable repair USB drive based on Windows PE. When the OS is down, you can insert the bootable USB and fix it from there by rebuilding MBR of corrupted system hard drive. Moreover, this software allows checking bad sectors of a partition and formatting hard disks as well.

If you’re still wondering how to boot computer into Command Prompt, just stop it for there’s a better alternative to CMD when Windows 10 doesn’t boot. Download the demo version and have a try right now!

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Step 1. Connect an empty USB stick to a normal PC and launch the software. Hit “Make Bootable Media” and hit “Next” as the screenshot shows.

Step 2. Select “USB Boot Device” and hit “Proceed”.

Step 3. Read the popup info and hit “Yes” to proceed.

Step 4. When the operation is completed, click on “Finish” to quit.

After the creation of the bootable USB, you should plug the USB into the PC that you want to boot, enter BIOS, change the boot order, boot the computer from the USB, and rebuild MBR.

Conclusion

How to boot into Command Prompt to fix the glitch when you have a system crash that Windows 10 can’t successfully boot? In the post, 2 pragmatic ways are given to help. Meanwhile, you can find another workaround – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional– to create a bootable USB with which you can rebuild MBR. Furthermore, if you can try other useful features of this software like command line partitioning and partition alignment, and more.