Command problems when replacing ntfs.sys

[Captn McPattern]

Hey, I'm new here and I'd appreciate any help with this. Last night I reinstalled Windows XP on my computer as it was failing to boot. When it told me to restart to continue the setup, I proceeded, except it didn't load up Windows, instead a message came up saying ntfs.sys was either missing or corrupt.

So I found http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822800 which gave me the commands I need, I just had to put the right drive letter where they said to. So I came up with:

"c:\windows\system32\drivers
ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old
copy d:\i386\ntfs.sys c:\windows\system32\drivers"

However the first line isn't recognised, and trying the last line on its own reveals the message "access is denied". I'd appreciate any help with this, and thanks for your time.

[Puter Padowan]

Try simply getting into your cd rom so that you are in D:

From there just try copying the file directly without trying to rename anything (assuming you haven't already)

Good luck and please keep us updated.

[Sylvander]

Which command prompt do you begin with?
I'll assume...

1. d:\>

2. d:\>c: [Change to c: command prompt]

3. c:\> [c:\> command prompt got to]

4. c:\>dir /p [Display all directories in C: a page at a time]

5. c:\>cd \windows\system32\drivers [change to the drivers directory]

6. c:\windows\system32\drivers> [got to]

7. c:\windows\system32\drivers>dir /p [display contents of drivers directory a page at a time. Look for ntfs.sys]

8. c:\windows\system32\drivers>ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old [rename ntfs.sys to ntfs.old in the drivers folder]

9. c:\windows\system32\drivers>copy d:\i386\ntfs.sys [copy the ntfs.sys file from the CD on d: to this drivers folder]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Which file system [FAT32 or NTFS] is being used on this [C:] partition?

11. You could use the "File Manager" [has a nice GUI] run from a FREE bootable Emergency Boot CD [EBCD] (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485) to browse a chosen partition [C:] to look inside the drivers folder at the ntfs.sys file.
If the partition file system is FAT[32] the "File Manager", being able to write to FAT32 but not NTFS, could copy the file using command 9 above.

[Paul Komski]

Last night I reinstalled Windows XP on my computer as it was failing to boot.I think we need to know two things at least.
1. Did anything specific happen to cause the PC to fail to boot in the first place and what specific symptoms or messages did the failure exhibit.
2. How did you do the reinstallation? Clean, Repair, Parallel.

The three commands from the recovery console that are useful for boot failures due to number of reasons are:
fixmbr
fixboot
bootcfg /rebuild