Have you recently changed the file system of your Windows XP system from FAT32 to NTFS? So, are you facing any booting problems after the file system conversion? If the answer to both the questions is YES, then it means that there may be some problems during the conversion. In such cases, the system may become inaccessible. You should resolve the issue using in-place repair of the Windows XP system. However, if you are not able to recover partition then you should use a partition recovery software to recover the trapped data.

Consider a scenario wherein you have a Windows XP system. You have changed its file system to FAT32 to NTFS by using the 'convert drive: /fs:ntfs' command. When you start the system after performing the conversion, it is unable to start. An error message is displayed, that is:

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

Cause:

The primary cause of this erroneous situation is that the Ntfs.sys file is corrupt or missing. It may have happened during the FAT32 to NTFS conversion. Resolution:

To resolve this error message, you should perform the following steps: Start the system using the Windows XP CD-ROM. Enter the Recovery Console and press the R key to start the repair process. Type the following commands and press Enter after each command:

cd\windows\system32\drivers

ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old

The ntfs.sys file will be renamed if it is corrupt. However, if it is not there it means that it is missing. Enter the following command and press the Enter key. copy X:\i386\ntfs.sys drive:\windows\system32\drivers  Enter quit, and press the Enter key to quit the Recovery Console. Restart your system. It should be able to start properly now.

However, there are instances where the aforementioned method is unable to provide you the working solution. In such situations, the only option is to reformat the hard disk and reinstall the operating system. However, before doing this you should use a third-party partition recovery software to restore the trapped data from the inaccessible partition. Such partition recovery tools are read-only in nature that perform Windows data recovery using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a partition recovery software that enables you to recover partition from FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems. It is able to restore more than 185 different file types from various storage media such as hard drives, external hard disks, iPods, etc. In addition, this Windows data recovery software is able to restore deleted emails from MS Outlook and Outlook. This data recovery software is compatibile with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.