hi everyone.

you guys seem to know everything.. hopefully you can help me on this one.

my roommate/cousin has a compaq presario 1700 notebook. two nights ago he went to fire it up and it gave him the infamous "ntfs.sys missing or corrupted".

he's not a techie and hadn't recently converted the drive to ntfs. i copied the file from the windows cd. it copied but didn't get rid of the error.

i tried the RAM out of my nearly-identical laptop. no dice.

any ideas?

i really appreciate any help.

thanks!

-eric

I remember having the same problem a while ago. Unfortunately this file is absolutely required in order to boot into windows and it is created during installation. It contains information which is related to the hardware of the computer.

Really don't know how to fix this. What I did was an install over the old installation, which enabled me to backup my files, do a format of the hard drive and then make a clean install.

I tried to avoid the re-installation but after 3-4 hours of research on the Internet, could not find a solution other than that i should have kept a copy of this file. Linux is a much better option!

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hm. yikes. i really hope there's another option.

like i said, he's not a techie so i'm sure he has no interest in linux.

unless they've ported iTunes over. mwaha.

-eric

Oh no, Compaq problems. I had a similar problem with both my wife's desktop and a laptop of mine. One thing I found helpful was to make sure that there was no hardware differences from the original configuration to the current (or last good current) as the compaq version of windows apparently is not the same as the normal one. I fought and fought with the desktop and having a different keyboard plugged in other than the original allowed me to get back in and backup before restoring everything. It may not be the same problem but just something to keep in mind when dealing with Compaq equipment.

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It's been so long since I've dealt with Windows boot problems (*cough* Linux *cough* Mac *cough, cough*) .

If you insert the Windows CD, isn't there an option on boot that allows you to run a filesystem repair or something similar? You might also try an install over the current FS; this is one of the things I sometimes tried back in the day that usually worked. And doing that shouldn't mess w/ the currently installed software, as Windows is just writing over itself.

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Give it up buddy!!! The only cure is to reinstall over the previous windows installation...;I know...its sux...but its the only way to fix it....I'm sure you have looked everywhere....so did i.

I've had that error... there was a floppy in the disk drive... ... I've read multiple solutions to the problem... most were that either the installation is totally corrupted or your disk has had it... but one mentioned a floppy... and lo behold...

I tried a solution suggested by a J de Silva that worked for me. I abbreviated his suggest to #4 which was; Insert XP disk into CD then reboot to Recovery Console, press "R" for recovery, which after password request, just press enter unless you have a password. This will take you to the C:\Windows prompt. Insert "Copy "D" (or whatever is your Cd letter where the XP disc is):\Windows\i386\nfts.sys C:\windows\system32\drivers, then press enter. If the file is corrupted you'll get a message "if should replacefile". Answer Yes, or if there's no message it will install the file. Then remove XP disc, Enter "Exit" and it should reboot clean. Viz; "Copy D:\i386\ntfs.sys C:\Windows\system32\drivers".

ITS GOOD SOLUTION BUT AFTER I COPY NTFS.SYS TO DRIVERS SYSTEM DONT ALOW REPLACE THIS FILE i DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

I too was recently hit with the same issue on a Windows 2000 Exchange server. I found a work arround by going in to the recovery console locating the file renaming ntfs.sys to ntfs.org and then copying ntfs.org to ntfs.sys. By doing this I have created a new copy of the file and my system was able to boot. Regards Trumby90.