Corrupt File Message

Have a 6-month old Dell Dimension 8300 running Win XP Home. All working well until last week when we decided to download SP2. Sometime during that download not sure what occurred. Since then a 'Windows-corrupt file' message keeps appearing and won't go away. The file is called "c:\$MFT". Searches have not found this file. Nothing seems to get rid of it. Anyone else have this happen? PLEASE HELP!!!!

 

Hi,
I'm not very experienced in this, but from what I've seen C:\$MFT indicates the presence of an NTFS partition, ie: Your C:\ drive is an NTFS partition....
Also, $MFT stands for the Master File Table, which is a record of all files on the hard disk and where their "physical locations" are....

If you can boot to safe mode, run a CHKDSK on the drive...

-- You can do this by opening "My Computer" right clicking your C:\ drive and choosing properties, select the "Tools" tab and click on "Check drive for errors"...

If you cannot boot to safe mode, you'll have to use the Recovery Console,....
--- To access it using the original Windows XP Home CD...
- Insert your Windows XP Home CD to the CD-ROM drive and boot the computer, you may have to configure the boot sequence in your computer's BIOS to allow it to boot from the CD-ROM.....
- Press R to enter the recovery console when the blue Setup screen appears...
- It will ask you to select your Windows XP installation, select it and then it will ask you for the administrator password (created during Windows XP Setup), if the password is blank, just press enter...
- It should take you to a command prompt....
- At this prompt, type CHKDSK /F and press Enter....
- If my assumption is correct, it should detect and attempt to correct this error
automatically, but still, since the $MFT is a crucial system area on the hard drive, I suggest backing up important files and documents before doing this....

- Hopefully that should solve the problem unless there was anything worse...

- NOTE: This problem might have been caused if you were downloading SP2 to
your computer and while it was installing, the power went out, or maybe a hard drive error occured damaging the Master File Table (similar to FAT - File allocation table on FAT and FAT32 systems)

-- If you cannot access your files, then you will have to salvage your important data off the NTFS partition to another one...

--- Download Windows 98 Bootdisk from:
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

--- Download ReadNTFS for DOS from here:
http://www.freewareseek.com/utils/1418/

Unzip readntfs.zip to the floppy drive and boot the computer using the floppy disk, from the DOS prompt type READNTFS.EXE and press ENTER...

Copy all your important files...

- Then reformat your NTFS partition, from the recovery console as mentioned, booting from the CD...

- Reinstall WIndows XP Home...

- NOTE: You don't have to download SP2 again, you can order a free CD right here, Free of charge (not even shipping and handling charges) from Microsoft and update your computer with it:

Order SP2: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/sp2/cdorder/en_us/default.mspx

- Hope that helps...

 

Thanks for the information. I failed to mention that this message appeared during the download; so perhaps a power event did occur. Machine does boot (not in safe mode) and we've run CHKDSK numerous times. The message box appears and won't go away. Can't close it and hitting 'ok' does nothing. Users can login and run programs but this annoying little box keeps poppping up.

Any other ideas or options?

 

did you burn sp2 to disk or do the express install,if you burned it to disk run
sfc /scannow

 

I did run the above using the original XP install CD. Not sure if it ran as it was comparing files for awhile and I left the room and returned it was finished with no messages...

 

uh - how do you burn sp2 to a disk? hope this isnt a noobish question...

 

you d/l the full version to your h/d,then burn image to disk
then if want to slipstream it to your original disk use this program nlite,from here
http://nuhi.msfn.org/

 

it does'nt say in xp if it has fixed anything if you have the disk in,if you leave the disk out if will ask for it if it finds anything wrong
have you still got the problem