How can I read an NTFS drive from DOS?
Wednesday, April 23, 2003 by SkinneRyan | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
My dad's work computer decided to stop working for no apparent reason (virus maybe?). It has 1 HDD with 2 NTFS patitions. I put a boot disk in and I can get to DOS but I can't access anything other than the floppy and CD-ROM drives.
After a LOT of looking around on the net, I found that there is (but there may not be
) a program called NTFSPRO which is exactly what I'm looking for, but a search in google only found something written in arabic, a chineese website, a couple of russian pages, and some (english!) page with a shortcut to a russian page with a dead link on it.
Can anyone out there help me?
Thanks.
After a LOT of looking around on the net, I found that there is (but there may not be
) a program called NTFSPRO which is exactly what I'm looking for, but a search in google only found something written in arabic, a chineese website, a couple of russian pages, and some (english!) page with a shortcut to a russian page with a dead link on it.Can anyone out there help me?
Thanks.
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SkinneRyan
Reply #22 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:49 AM
Reply #22 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:49 AM
6 boot disks?
I don't think I even HAVE that many
That could help, but it seems you've neglected to tell me where to DL it (or at least it's name, so I know what to look for)
I don't think I even HAVE that many
That could help, but it seems you've neglected to tell me where to DL it (or at least it's name, so I know what to look for)
yrag2
Reply #23 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:53 AM
Reply #23 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:53 AM
ummmm.....try going back to the bios and set to 'Default" or if it has it 'Failsafe'. See if your Bios is showing a hard drive, if not put on auto detect. Make certain no one has messed with memory settings or speed. High states in memory settings can make a hard drive disappear.
yrag2
Reply #24 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:58 AM
Reply #24 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:58 AM
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b315261
Jafo
Reply #25 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:58 AM
Reply #25 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:58 AM
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=55820EDB-5039-4955-BCB7-4FED408EA73F
There you go...
There you go...
yrag2
Reply #26 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:00 AM
Reply #26 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:00 AM
if you have XP Pro use Jafo's Link...if Home Edition use mine 
yrag2
Reply #27 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:08 AM
Reply #27 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:08 AM
you might also try to boot up with XP CD and select either repair or use last good startup options
yrag2
Reply #28 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:16 AM
Reply #28 Thursday, April 24, 2003 1:16 AM
you can also boot up CD and use Command Prompt to bring Taskmanager, hit new task and see if it shows your files. If it does drill down to System Restore
pjpowell
Reply #29 Thursday, April 24, 2003 6:19 AM
Reply #29 Thursday, April 24, 2003 6:19 AM
what OS is on it? If it's 2000 or XP insert the Install CD and when prompted to repair or whatever choose recovery console. From there you should be able to dig around and see if the hard disk is even readable.
I recently had someone at work who was getting 'no boot disk' on windows XP. Managed to use the 2K recovery console to write a new MBR and get it up and running. Turned out she had over 400 infected files (three different viruses in there, yaha, loveletter and one other I can't remember). Maybe a similar thing happened on your Dad's PC.
I recently had someone at work who was getting 'no boot disk' on windows XP. Managed to use the 2K recovery console to write a new MBR and get it up and running. Turned out she had over 400 infected files (three different viruses in there, yaha, loveletter and one other I can't remember). Maybe a similar thing happened on your Dad's PC.
SkinneRyan
Reply #30 Thursday, April 24, 2003 7:24 AM
Reply #30 Thursday, April 24, 2003 7:24 AM
It has XP.
I have managed to access the second partition (thanks for NTFSDOS and READNTFS everyone), but unfortunately that's the one with the OS files on it, not the stuff he actually needs for his work >
.
Using READNTFS, it acknowledges the existance of two partitions, but it claims the first one is FAT32, and it says "Error in sector #0 or BOOT sector is invalid"
Which, to me, translates roughly to something along the lines of: "you've got a virus, haha"
I asked dad if he remembered anything wierd happening a within a couple of days of the computer not working, and he said that he got an email that didn't have his email address in the To: CC: or BCC: fields. I'm assuming that there was a virus in the email, and whatever it was has destroyed part of the hard drive.
I have managed to access the second partition (thanks for NTFSDOS and READNTFS everyone), but unfortunately that's the one with the OS files on it, not the stuff he actually needs for his work >
.Using READNTFS, it acknowledges the existance of two partitions, but it claims the first one is FAT32, and it says "Error in sector #0 or BOOT sector is invalid"
Which, to me, translates roughly to something along the lines of: "you've got a virus, haha"
I asked dad if he remembered anything wierd happening a within a couple of days of the computer not working, and he said that he got an email that didn't have his email address in the To: CC: or BCC: fields. I'm assuming that there was a virus in the email, and whatever it was has destroyed part of the hard drive.
citats
Reply #31 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:19 AM
Reply #31 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:19 AM
Ryan it starting to sound like your MBR has been messed up. Have heart this can be fixed. Using the XP cd boot your system and run setup. Setup will ask you if you would like to repair, install etc. chose repair, this will load the XP recovery console. to rewrite the MBR use the following commands. first log on using the administrator user name and password. type fixmbr then hit enter. that should do it then reboot. Its been a while since I have had to do that fix so you may want to look at the MS knowledge base on the recovery console.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654
citats
Reply #32 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:37 AM
Reply #32 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:37 AM
oh yeah you also mentioned that there are two partitions. You can reinstall XP on the partition that does not contain the files you need to access. You will be able to access them again after the install.
IPlural
Reply #33 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:49 AM
Reply #33 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:49 AM
stick the XP install CD into the CD and boot from it, run recovery console and then type FIXBOOT and FIXMBR
it should rebuild the XP boot area so the drive reads correctly.
it should rebuild the XP boot area so the drive reads correctly.
Jafo
Reply #35 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:50 AM
Reply #35 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:50 AM
Static...that's what I said from the beginning...that I'd used the boot disks to fix my friend's root...[his XP 'CD' was on the harddrive]...
citats
Reply #36 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:55 AM
Reply #36 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:55 AM
yeah some pc makers still put images on drives... it has some major disadvantages... the advantage is unknown to me... if he does not have the xp cd then creating those disks is the only other way... short of a reinstall. If he can avoid floppies
citats
Reply #37 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:57 AM
Reply #37 Thursday, April 24, 2003 8:57 AM
hmmmm... I have 6 floppies right here... they say Windows 3.1 and they have a few coffee stains on then. But my desk does not
Tech Cat
Reply #38 Thursday, April 24, 2003 3:37 PM
Reply #38 Thursday, April 24, 2003 3:37 PM
Don't trust Microsoft to rescue your system. Go here http://www.knoppix.org
Peff
Reply #39 Thursday, April 24, 2003 4:01 PM
Reply #39 Thursday, April 24, 2003 4:01 PM
jj....why would he go to a linux site to rescue an XP drive? Did I miss a 'fix boot sector of XP' link somewhere on that page? Just wondering if you're going to start the linux thing again
Tech Cat
Reply #40 Thursday, April 24, 2003 4:05 PM
Reply #40 Thursday, April 24, 2003 4:05 PM
Knoppix can read NTFS partitions (what XP uses). It can be used to rescue both Windows and Linux systems.
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Reply #21 Thursday, April 24, 2003 12:46 AM
Since I don't have a hard drive (or so the computer is trying to convince me), there's nowhere to log it.
And there's no boot log option in the BIOS either
I know that Dad has a virus scanner on the computer, but it's probably different to the one on this computer.