NTFS.SYS corrupted or Missing and Password doesn't work

[Guest]

Sorry this may be a rather lengthy post, but I want to give as much
information as possible.
I upgraded my WinXP Professional to SP2 this week (from the CD), and
everything completed normally, then asked me to reboot. When I rebooted, it
came up with the message that WINNT\SYSTEM32\NTFS.SYS was missing or
corrupted. It indicated that I should run automated recovery from the WINXP
CD. When I run it, (selecting R for recovery), it shows the NTFS partition
and asks which partition you want to work with. I enter 1 (for the
partition), and then it asks for the ADMINISTRATOR password. When I set up XP
2 years ago, I set it up for multiple users (for my wife and myself and
guests because I do a lot of development and she doesn't want to see all the
choices).
I have my own id that I use on a constant basis with Administrator
priviledges that is password protected. You get 3 tries to enter in the
Administrator password before it requires you to reboot and spend 2 1/2
minutes rebooting and getting to the password option again. Over the last 2
nights, I have tried a minimum of 45 permutations and it rejects every
password.
Without going into the details, I was an idiot and didn't back my system up
before I installed sp2. I don't want to have to reformat and reinstall
everything because I will lose over ten years of financial records. Is there
any way to re-install NTFS.SYS and get around this problem ??????

 

[Mark A. Sam]

Rick,

The same thing happend to me last month. I posted the problem on the Access
Forms group on Sept 10, at 9:05 AM. The Title is "Urgent Can't boot". I
didn't have the same error, but you could try the solution. I was able to
recover without an problem. I don't have time to recap it, which is why I
cited the thread.

Hope that helps you.

God Bless,

Mark A. Sam

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have my own id that I use on a constant basis with Administrator
priviledges that is password protected. You get 3 tries to enter in the
Administrator password before it requires you to reboot and spend 2 1/2
minutes rebooting and getting to the password option again. Over the last 2
nights, I have tried a minimum of 45 permutations and it rejects every
password.

If you are booting the CD, at that point it is usually wanting a blank
Admin password

 

[Guest]

Tried that one too. No go

If you are booting the CD, at that point it is usually wanting a blank
Admin password

 

[Sam]

Tried that one too. No go

When it asks for the Administrator password, it doesn't mean someone
with administrative privileges. It's the password for "The
Administrator" of the system and it would have been one of the things
it asked for, as part of the installation process. This is totally
separate from the normal users of the system. (The administrator is a
separate user from everyone else).

If you don't have this password, you are pretty much screwed. There is
software that will allow you to break in to the system, but I've never
used one. Otherwise, the only thing you have left is to do a new
installation and assign a new password.

Sam

 

[Malke]

When it asks for the Administrator password, it doesn't mean someone
with administrative privileges. It's the password for "The
Administrator" of the system and it would have been one of the things
it asked for, as part of the installation process. This is totally
separate from the normal users of the system. (The administrator is a
separate user from everyone else).

If you don't have this password, you are pretty much screwed. There is
software that will allow you to break in to the system, but I've never
used one. Otherwise, the only thing you have left is to do a new
installation and assign a new password.

Sam

You can easily change the Administrator password with ntpasswd:

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Malke