muhbaad

its a sony vaio notebook model pcg-v505ax

wasnt workin because of missing the file "system32\drivers\ntfs.sys"

i didnt have the setup cd-rom so i just took out the harddrive.

what do i do now? i wanna hook it up to my desktop computer so i can get my files and pictures. can i still even do that? help please!!

FreoHeaveho

To resolve this problem install the hard drive, print these instructions and then replace the missing or corrupted Ntfs.sys file:

1. Use the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD to restart your computer.
   
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to select the To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R option.
   
3. Type the number of the Windows installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console, and then press ENTER.
   
4. Type the administrator password when you are prompted, and then press ENTER. If no administrator password exists, just press ENTER.
   
5. At the command prompt, type the following commands (press ENTER after each command):
   • cd \windows\system32\drivers
   • ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old
   
   Note This step renames the corrupted Ntfs.sys file to Ntfs.old. If the Ntfs.sys file is not found, the file is missing.
   
   
6. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
   • copy cd:\i386\ntfs.sys drive:\windows\system32\drivers
   
   (Where cd is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive that contains the Windows XP CD, and drive is the drive where you installed Windows XP)
   
   
7. Remove the Windows XP CD from your CD-ROM drive, type quit at a command prompt, and then press ENTER to quit the Recovery Console.
   
8. Restart the computer.
9. Assuming successful completion, back up all files (because now you know how it feels nearly lose your files).

If this hasn't helped, you will need to connect (via a caddy/external drive) your hard drive as a slave drive, where you can extract your files and reformat.

BTW Welcome to TSF! and... next time as a title something like "missing ntfs.sys" would be better. cheers

blah789

I went to the Sony site
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu...CGV505AX&LOC=3
and looked for the specs for the type of ide drive your laptop supports (PATA or SATA). Can't seem to find it anywhere (not even in the manual).
A few google searches suggest that it's PATA though.
If so you won't be able to plug it directly into your desktop. You'll need a special adapter like the ones they sell on ebay
http://computers.search.ebay.com/2-5...Q2e5Q20adapter
(ignore the SATA ones).
A few things about plugging it into your desktop. Since your laptop's HD is probably set to master, it's best to connect this on the secondary IDE channel (and remove any other device currently on it).
Then just boot into your computer - check the BIOS can detect the drive. Once you get into Windows, go to disk management (start, run, devmgmt.msc and press enter) and make sure the drive can be seen and its partitions too. Then start event viewer, start, run, eventvwr.msc. Look in the system tab and track it. Now try accessing NON-important files (just to read them, or copy them to your desktop HD). Then refresh the event viewer (press F5). If new errors are popping up (IDE/ATAPI/bad blocks), chances are the drive is failing (physical failure) and any further attempt to read anything will only produce further damage. If the data is valuable to you, send the disk away to a data recovery company. Hopefully it's not that bad and you can just copy away all your important data.


I put the next stuff last, because you shouldn't worry about getting this working until you get your data first.
Are you getting this at boot time? It may signal a failing hard drive (either the file is corrupted, or the drive is damaged aka the read-write heads can't position correctly, the power is going on and off during the read, or many other things). Also check for any clicking sounds when that happens.

FreoHeaveho

a random google search is not required so please... just follow my instruction

If you cannot get a XP CD or you cannot slave the device, a data recovery company will charge you in the region of $2000. I think you will find a XP cd off ebay to complete my instructions will be better....

craigwatanabe

Get a 2.5 Pata IDE to USB adapter from places like geeks.com, set the laptop hard drive to master, plug it into your desktop's USB port (no power adapter needed), let XP detect it and look for it under My Computer as another drive.

Using Explore, open up and look for Administrator's Documents and find your files under the appropriate folder such as My Music, My Pictures, etc.

You can then pull all your stored data from that hard drive without destroying the installed (and corrupted) operating system. When you do find your recovery CD you can then reinstall it back in your laptop and run the recovery console to restore that operating system.

This is the simplest way to recover data from your crashed OS. In the future I recommend you store all of your data on an external USB hard drive.

FreoHeaveho

I don't think there is any need to purcahse anything as all that is wrong is missing the system32\drivers\ntfs.sys.

Instructions on how to replace that are in my post above....

blah789

Your interpretation is... the file got somehow corrupted, or that some bad sectors may have developed where ntfs.sys was residing, and that just replacing the file should fix things. That's a best case scenario, and the most obvious. Your interpretation is fine, but it doesn't look at alternate (worse) scenarios.

In my experience however, I have never had a file that's (always) worked/loaded at boot time suddenly fail like that and it turns out to be a a bad sector or corrupt file.

I used to get errors like that at startup too. Sometimes it was the hard disk turning off right in the middle of boot (new power supply fixed that - the file wasn't corrupt at all - it was just the disk stopped reading).

Another case is disk failure. Mechanics, as in misaligned actuator arms or spinning platters. This is the more serious case, and whenever you attempt a read (often it happens in similar regions of the disk), it would mark the sector as bad (what actually happens is foggy though - it may have mangled that portion of the disk, or it can't even align to read it at all). I'm almost certain replacing a boot-time driver at that stage won't work, and even if you do, most likely another will fail (I've had atapi.sys, ntoskrnl.exe, and ntdetect.com before - just from memory, but there may have been others). At that point, the best thing to do would be to make the drive a slave, or put it on another IDE channel, and salvage what you can (in many cases the unreadable area will only be confined to a section of the disk, and the rest will be recoverable - I can't say what percentage of that time that holds true though). I can't say I was lucky enough to salvage data in all cases, and I probably would have been better off sending it away to a data recovery company had I been able to afford it.

Anyway, maybe he is lucky and nfts.sys is the only bad file and replacing it will fix everything. He can try it and find out.

Also the original post (second part) asks if he can hook it up to a desktop computer and copy the files. My answer was yes (via 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter sold on ebay - they're like $5 a piece), and the other guy's suggestion was via 2.5" to USB adapter.

FreoHeaveho

In post 2, i covered all of that concisely, including the option of slaving the drive.

Until we see evidence that this is anything other than a corruption or missing sys file I think it is better to try the free alternative, which is in accordance with MS troubleshooting, rather than going out and purchasing something that may not be needed.

As the OP hasn't replied, lets simply see what happens rather than making speculative purchasing suggestions. Lets stick with what we know and then go from there.

muhbaad

thanks for the help guys.

let you know how it goes.