Windows 2000 startup error with file VGAOEM.FON

[chiwawa626]

When i startup my dell Inspiron 8000 with windows 2000 professional loaded on it i get the following error:

Windows could not start. The following file is missing or corrupted \windows\system\vgaoem.fon.
You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows setup using the original setup CD-ROM. Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

Following the onscreen directions i load up the windows 2000 pro cd and goto the recovery console. I found this page on microsofts site giving more detailed instructions and i attempt to follow them: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315338

When I try to write to the harddrive it gives me a message saying "Access Denied". What is the point of recovery console if it cant even write to the harddrive?

So I thought i'd go in dos and just copy over the file manualy and run scandisk or something. Well the parition is NTFS so with a regular bootdisk i am screwed. I dig up NTFSPRO a utility that allows you to read/write to NTFS partitions...so i boot up in dos, load up NTFSPRO, then copy over VGAOEM.FON from my other windows 2000 pro machine. Then i bootup as regular and still the same error. The error also comes up when trying to bootup in safemode, as well as debuging mode.

Is there any way to solve this, or would my best option be to use NTFSPRO and salvage what data i need then just reformat and reinstall windows?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Agamar]

You should be able to let Win2k do the auto recovery option. Don't go into the recovery console, try letting it repair the install. What it should do is recopy all the files over to the hard drive and then reboot.