How to fix "Missing or corrupt NTFS.sys" error in Windows XP

Posted on May 20, 2008 at 5:38 am

One of my XP SP2 computers at home crapped out today with the error “Missing or corrupt Ntfs.sys” and would not get past the initial BIOS screen. I eventually got it back up and running without having to format the computer, but it took a little while and it wasn’t super straightforward. So if you are getting this error, here are the steps you can take to fix it.

The exact error message that you get from Windows is:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys

When you do a search in Google for ntfs.sys is missing or corrupt, the first result is from Microsoft Support. In particular, it states you might get this message when you convert your hard disk from FAT to NTFS. That was not the case in my situation. I tried to run defragmenter and it froze in the middle. After restarting, I got this message.

I’ll explain their method first (which did not work for me) and then two other methods to fix this issue.

Use the Recovery Console to replace Ntfs.sys

Pop in your CD into the computer and boot off the CD when prompted to “Press any key to boot from CD“. When the Welcome screen appears, press R to select the To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R option.

Next, type the number for the installation you want to logon to from the Recovery Console. You’ll also need to know the administrator password in order to get to the command prompt.

Now that you are at the command prompt, you need to enter in the following DOS commands, pressing Enter after each one:

cd \windows\system32\drivers
ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old

This basically renames the current ntfs.sys file to something else so that we can replace it with a new one that hopefully is not corrupted. Now type in the following command:

copy cd:\i386\ntfs.sys drive:\windows\system32\drivers

Where cd is the drive letter for the CD-ROM drive that has you Windows XP CD, and drive is the drive where you installed Windows XP (most likely C:).

That’s it! Now go ahead and remove the CD and type quit. Go ahead restart your computer and see if you are able to log back into Windows!

Fix Ntfs.sys error by using CHKDSK

For some reason the above-mentioned method did not work for me! I think it was because the file itself was not an issue, but that there were some problems with the hard drive itself. So after trying to copy the new Ntfs.sys file from the CD and that not working, I thought I would try to run CHKDSK.

You can run CHKDSK from the Recovery Console itself. So you would follow the same instructions as mentioned above, but instead of typing in the three DOS commands above, you would type in the following at the command prompt:

CHKDSK /R

The /R is a command line switch that says to repair any errors that are found on the hard disk automatically. CHKDSK can take quite some time to run, so be ready to wait. It took about 30 minutes on my computer.

Luckily for me, there were several errors on the disk and CHKDSK fixed them all. I restarted the computer and Windows loaded fine, no missing ntfs.sys error!

Repair Ntfs.sys by doing a repair install of Windows XP

If none of the above-mentioned methods worked, you can try to do a repair install of Windows XP, which basically replaces all of the Windows system files. Your applications and settings will remain intact, but you will have to reapply all Windows updates.

Doing a repair install is pretty easy, the starting steps are the same as for getting into the Recovery Console, but instead of pressing R to repair, you press Enter to setup Windows.

Then you simply select the installation you want to repair and press R to start the repair.

Note that it may look like Windows is actually re-installing a fresh copy of itself, but this is not the case! You’ll see the install screens like if you were to do a fresh install, but don’t worry, you’ll still have all of your applications, settings, and data.

Hopefully you now have a working computer! If you are getting stuck somewhere, etc, post a comment and I’ll try to help you out! Good luck!

[tags]ntfs.sys, fix ntfs.sys error, missing ntfs.sys, missing or corrupt ntfs.sys, corrupt ntfs.sys[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

30 Responses to “How to fix "Missing or corrupt NTFS.sys" error in Windows XP”

Shoban said on : May 20th, 2008 at 6:50 am

How did you take screenshots?

Marco said on : May 25th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

Looks like it was running on some “virtual computer”… very interesting article, by the way! Hope I’ll never it…

Jeremy said on : June 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

I have this same error, and have tried to follow your excellent instructions. However, as soon as I press ‘r’ to enter the recovery console, the system bombs out with a BSOD citing a “Page fault in non paged area”. Therefore I can’t perform the remaining steps.

If anyone reading can make any suggestions, I would be so grateful.

Random said on : June 24th, 2008 at 12:55 am

Jeremy, run memtest86 or something that will check your RAM for errors. You probably have faulty RAM because the “page fault in non paged area” error occurs in that specific situtation.

martin said on : July 2nd, 2008 at 7:31 am

okay … but how the hell to fix this thing if i haven’t got the xp cd? i never got a cd, but my computer had xp on it at the first place. what am i supposed to do now?

B said on : July 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm

I’ve tried all the above and still get the ntfs.sys error. Starting to think my drive is bad cuz had 2 disk read error issues in the past 6 months and had to do a new xp install each time. I did have a pci.sys error and ran the repair install of xp and ended up with the ntfs.sys error! Help!

jess said on : July 15th, 2008 at 12:39 am

hi, sir.. i dont have any XP cd.. is it possible for me to dowload the ntfs.sys alone? i hope anyone can help me out.. thank you!

adrian gil said on : July 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

amigo cordial saludo, tengo el mismo problema que ud menciona pero cuando le doy “enter” o R el error enseguida me sale en conclusion no me deja ni reparar ni reinstalar el windows, que puedo hacer en este caso???

km said on : August 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm

what if u dont have a cd?

Eyal said on : August 4th, 2008 at 2:47 am

Hi,
Non of the above worked for me.
For any scenario I still get the blue screen with an error ntfs.sys – address F744ABEF.
Can you please help me here ?
Thanks, Eyal

Barb said on : August 17th, 2008 at 11:48 am

None of this worked for me because I could not get the computer to boot off the CD so I could get to a Recovery Console. Any suggestions?

screwed??? said on : August 24th, 2008 at 6:17 pm

I followed all steps. I had to borrow an xp disc from a friend due to the way the original for my computer was formatted..dvd that ONLY wanted to reinstall everything..wiping my files from the drive. It would not allow me to get to the blue restore screen.

The chkdsk /r suggestion did fix the error msg, but didn’t restore windows. So I delved futher into it. I tried copying the ntfs file from the disk, however for some reason it was an empty file and was useless. I followed that by attempting the final suggestion on the page and now am wondering if I made a fatal error.
My installed wos was xp media, my friend’s disc was for xp pro. When it ran through the restore function I wasn’t worried. When it restarted and wanted to complete the installation process, it appeared to be telling me that it was now going to xp pro, and that I had done exactly what I didn’t want to do…delete everything.

Is it too late for me? Should I cut my losses and finish the install? I stopped @ the initial install and did not complete the setup or final install phases. Please tell me there’s still hope.

Andrew said on : September 12th, 2008 at 12:31 am

Hi. I had the same problem with the NTFS message then, when I went to boot with the windows CD and error message came up and would not aeven allow me to boot off the cd.

I took out my RAM memory and re-inserted it. After I did this 2 or 3 times windows booted correctly and did not say missing or currupt NTFS file.

Linda said on : September 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Your website has saved me time and time again! Thank You so much for helping me out! So informative and easy! Again Thank You!

Iam4uf said on : October 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Had same problem. Ended up being memory issue. I put a new stick in and booted up fine.

RAM-man said on : November 10th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

I had this exact error but the above didn’t fix it, even though they have fixed the issue in the past. I noticed that I couldn’t boot to the CD/DVD drives all the time and decided to take the extra stick of RAM out. That worked. The ram was bad. So, try it if you need.

Fabri said on : November 19th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

I have the same problem but what happens is that all the steps described above do not work for me at all since the windows repair console gives me the BSD with the ntfs.sys message everytime i try to use the windows installation cd’s . If I start windows normally , all i get is the operating system options upon pressing f8. I managed to start a live cd which could not access my hardisk which indicated that ntfs is incompatible with RAW. If I use a linux live cd like knoppix i can see all partitions and even the files and i can even open them. I need to recover my files . What can I do??

Fabri said on : November 21st, 2008 at 9:20 am

Hi all, i tried using ERD Commander from Microsoft , it took some time to detect my drive and only detected a bad MBR and corrupted partitions , but funny thing is if i use a linux distro live cd , it detects my hd and all the data right away , i can even open my files. Is it possible to use my linux live cd to move the files to a safe heaven? how to do that??

Fabri said on : November 21st, 2008 at 9:21 am

Hi all, i tried using ERD Commander from Microsoft , it took some time to detect my drive and only detected a bad MBR and corrupted partitions and di , but funny thing is if i use a linux distro live cd , it detects my hd and all the data right away , i can even open my files. Is it possible to use my linux live cd to move the files to a safe heaven? how to do that??

Stephen said on : February 25th, 2009 at 8:26 pm

My parents desktop had the ntfs.sys error. Took it home and repaired it using the geekstogo startup disk. When I took it back to parents’ house,ntfs.sys error right away. Tried to repair using the same disk – chkdsk failed- unrecoverable error. Took out the RAM sticks, cleaned & replaced them. Instant cure

Rifai said on : March 8th, 2009 at 6:36 am

thx, its solve my problems !

lungsug said on : March 26th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

Yes Stephen, you can use your knoppix disk to copy your files onto a floppy drive or a external HDD. Not sure if you can copy to a flash drive but i guess worth a try. i used knoppix one time to get info off a disk that would not boot.

james said on : March 31st, 2009 at 1:30 pm

I had this same problem except i didn’t update anything. It randomly crashed and i recieved the error message. All i had to do was restart it a few times and it worked for me. Sadly as i was writing this message it did it again. I’m using the pc now that apperently has corrupt ntfs.sys file i don’t get it. It’s either broke or it isn’t.

SkyWolf said on : July 7th, 2009 at 11:00 am

I had same error for two days now. I was changing some parts, so it’s a good idea to unplug and plug-in again the hdd data cable. It worked for me. Sometimes the bios just gets bugged and pc is not working normally.

Sandy said on : August 4th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

My computer says plug and play error. I reinstalled windows xp and it did not fix it…

clara said on : August 9th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

Thank u!!! It solved my missing or corrupt NTFS.sys problem!

Judith said on : September 8th, 2009 at 6:52 am

Hi, did a repair install of windows xp having tried absolutely everything and getting nowhere. It worked and I am up and running again. Thanks a mill.

J

Marcos said on : September 10th, 2009 at 7:20 am

Hi, I have same problem too. So I repair my windows installation and works fine, but them when I re-apply windows uptades on next reboot, the problem reappears.

Bo Miller said on : September 18th, 2009 at 6:04 am

I tried the approach, but neither a Bart PE or a Windows XP Install cd could do anything; it just kept bluescreening me with ntfs.sys-errors.
Then I moved the hd to another (fully functional) PC and changed the scsi id to something available and it STILL gave me the exact same bluescreen! Hmf!
With the hard drive disconnected, I can boot from cd all I want. RAM test gives no errors in this condition.

Well, tried to scan the physical drive with a tool from the Adaptec controller, found & fixed some errors. If that doesn’t cut it, I’ll clean up the RAM sticks as a last option. If not, I’ll officially declare the hard drive dead, and drink myself off the fence instead. Hah!

Morale: excellent guide, but ntfs.sys errors seemingly can occur in situations not repairable. Bugger!

Isar said on : October 12th, 2009 at 9:39 am

For All: The “Missing or corrupt Ntfs.sys” message will occur if you have bad memory. It will happen in both WinXP and 2003 Server OSs. Just had it happen again on an older machine with 2003 server. The server quit over a weekend..no software changes had been made.

To troubleshoot, remove or replace one stick of memory at at time.

We really appreciate the folks who had made entries above that pointed to bad memory. We’re now back up and running.

Microsoft should update its Knowledge Base to indicate that this is a very possible cause of “Missing or corrupt Ntfs.sys” error message.

Thanks, Online-Tech-Tips!

Isar