- Aug 27, 2001
- 6,770
- 1
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ok, here is the scoop... I run a pc with windows XP pro sp1 as the OS. Tonight I was playing a game (morrowind) and then paused it and was away for 30 or so min. When I came back the computer was black screen saying a few lines. Basically it said that windows could not start up due to a missing or corrupt ntfs.sys file. it then instructed me to put in the startup cd and run recovery from there.
Ok, so I was like "WTF!?!?" and resarted the machine and booted from my winxp disc. Well, it started to install the files neccessary to run setup and crashed when it was installing the kernal debugger. It said cannot continue, setup must exit. error code 4. So I reset it. After doing this about a dozen time it finally went through. I was able to press the "r" button to run recovery console and copy over a new copy of ntfs.sys to my windows drive as instructed on a help site. This worked and windows rebooted
I started playing morrowind again (after copying important files over to my second hard drive, just in case) the computer then randomly reboot again. At startup it was the same thing as before, missing or corrupt ntfs.sys So after taking the same steps as before and running the cd like 30 times, I was able to get windows to start twice. Once without running the cd (I forgot to hit a key when the prompt asked if I wanted to boot from CD) and it promplty crashed right when windows was fully running again. The second time it got through the cd setup, I copied the new ntfs over again, resarted, and it crashed just as windows was finished loading up.
My question is this, what do I do? Can I salvage this install of windows? If not, can I run a boot disk and get whatever files I need to my second hard drive and then just reinstall? One concern I have is a virus. I run macafee professional 7.0 virus thing (latest dat's) so it catches the normal bugs, but what about special bugs? Does anyone know of a virus that does this? I guess the other possibility is a busted hard drive. it is a 4-year old western digital WD400BB drive (40 GB), but somehow I doubt this to be the case.
I only wonder because then I have infected all my backup files on the second hard drive. I am almost convinced I just need to reinstall after getting what I need off the old drive, but I want to save this for a last resort. Thanks for any help you guys can offer.
-Spike
P.S. I will be slow responding to this thread due to the amount of time I have to be at work, so be patient if you ask me for more information. Thanks again
Ok, so I was like "WTF!?!?" and resarted the machine and booted from my winxp disc. Well, it started to install the files neccessary to run setup and crashed when it was installing the kernal debugger. It said cannot continue, setup must exit. error code 4. So I reset it. After doing this about a dozen time it finally went through. I was able to press the "r" button to run recovery console and copy over a new copy of ntfs.sys to my windows drive as instructed on a help site. This worked and windows rebooted
I started playing morrowind again (after copying important files over to my second hard drive, just in case) the computer then randomly reboot again. At startup it was the same thing as before, missing or corrupt ntfs.sys So after taking the same steps as before and running the cd like 30 times, I was able to get windows to start twice. Once without running the cd (I forgot to hit a key when the prompt asked if I wanted to boot from CD) and it promplty crashed right when windows was fully running again. The second time it got through the cd setup, I copied the new ntfs over again, resarted, and it crashed just as windows was finished loading up.
My question is this, what do I do? Can I salvage this install of windows? If not, can I run a boot disk and get whatever files I need to my second hard drive and then just reinstall? One concern I have is a virus. I run macafee professional 7.0 virus thing (latest dat's) so it catches the normal bugs, but what about special bugs? Does anyone know of a virus that does this? I guess the other possibility is a busted hard drive. it is a 4-year old western digital WD400BB drive (40 GB), but somehow I doubt this to be the case.
I only wonder because then I have infected all my backup files on the second hard drive. I am almost convinced I just need to reinstall after getting what I need off the old drive, but I want to save this for a last resort. Thanks for any help you guys can offer.
-Spike
P.S. I will be slow responding to this thread due to the amount of time I have to be at work, so be patient if you ask me for more information. Thanks again