The NTFS (New Technology File System) is a journaled file system from Microsoft that is the successor of the FAT-based systems. Because of the journaling feature, it ensures that the indices and the internal data structures of the system are intact even after a serious system crash. A system crash, on the other hand, can happen because of various reasons such as virus infections, corrupt file system, hardware malfunctioning, abrupt system shutdown, etc. You should use appropriate corrective measures to resolve the situation. If you do not succeed in doing so, then you should use a third-party NTFS File Recovery software.

Consider a scenario wherein you have a Windows XP SP 2 system. When you switch it on, it fails to boot. An error message is displayed, that is:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing: \system32\drivers\ntfs.sys”

Cause:

This problematic situation appears when you have performed the following steps: You have installed Windows XP Service Pack 2. You have installed the Windows XP SP1 roll up. After installing roll up, you either enabled the hyper-threading feature or added another processor.

The reason behind this situation is that the roll up 1 for Windows XP was dated after the release of Windows XP SP 2. In ideal situations, the roll up should not be installed after the installation of Windows XP SP 2.

Resolution:

To resolve this situation, you should perform the following steps: Enter the Recovery Console by using the Windows XP CD. In the Recovery Console command prompt, enter the following lines and press the Enter key after every line. cd system32  ren ntkrnlpa.exe ntkrnlpa.old ren ntoskrnl.exe ntoskrnl.old  cd "c:\windows\driver cache\i386" expand sp2.cab -F:ntkrpamp.exe c:\windows\system32 expand sp2.cab -F:ntkrnlmp.exe c:\windows\system32 cd c:\windows\system32 ren ntkrpamp.exe ntkrnlpa.exe ren ntkrnlmp.exe ntoskrnl.exe Enter Exit to exit Recovery Console and restart the computer. The computer should boot properly now.

However, there may be instances when the problem does not resolve even after performing the aforementioned method properly. In such cases, you should try to use a third-party NTFS data recovery software to restore the inaccessible data. Such tools are read-only in nature that do not overwrite the original data while scanning the storage media.

NTFS Data Recovery Software is an NTFS partition recovery software that restores lost, deleted, or formatted data from inaccessible NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. It is able to restore more than 185 different file types from various storage media such as hard drives, flash drives, etc. In addition, this NTFS file recovery software is capable of live updating its definitions from the Internet. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.