Corrupt Master File Table

[horqua]

A few weeks back, I loaded Spybot and ran it on my Win2K system. It found a few things and when I gave it permission to delete the items, Spybot "glitched". After a restart, I received a message stating my user profile was corrupt. I was able to enter the system but I had lost all the settings in my regular user profile. I tried to recover the user profile, to no avail. I uninstalled Spybot and ran Chkdsk via Restart. Chkdsk runs thru to the 5th level and stops. It reports a "Corrupt Master File Table". I've tried Run>cmd>chkdsk /f in a DOS window and it reports "Volume in use by another process". I'm unable to determin the "other process". My system works OK but I'm worried that the corrupt MFT will become an issue. I can't seem to work around this process on my own and I could use your advice.

My research indicates a number of solutions. Three come to mind:
1 - Reformat and reinstall the OS (I've already done a full backup and I'd really like to avoid going down this path if I can help it)
2 - Reset the Master Boot Record
3 - Reinstall Service Pack 4 (When I tried this last night, I received the Volume in use... message which stopped the Service Pack from installing)

Have any of you experienced this problem? Did you solve it and how?

Thank you in advance for your input!

Knock and the door will be opened to you; Seek and you will find; Ask and it will be given to you! Our God is an awesome God!

 

[xkjdhdg]

I would boot with my cd with Windows 2000 on it and enter the recovery console and recovery the Windows 2000 loaded.

 

[horqua]

MrFixit,
Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it, but it didn't work. So I tried another idea. I have a small (9gb) HD with Win2K set up so I placed it in my box and set it as the Master. I changed my primary drive (40gb) to Slave and booted the system. I was finally able to CHKDSK /f the primary (40gb) (in this case, the slave) drive. Chkdsk was able to complete the process (see above for reason why chkdsk wouldn't finish when the 40gb was the master).

I took out the small drive, reconfigured, and rebooted with the primary (40gb) drive. The Win2K start-up screen appears, but before I get to the log-in screen, I get the BSOD and the message "Page fault in nonpage area".

Any ideas where to go from here? Or, do I need to reformat and reinstall? I'm backed up so that's not an issue of great concern. If I do need to reinstall, how do I keep from replacing a bad file and causing the problem all over again?

Thanks again in advance.

Knock and the door will be opened to you; Seek and you will find; Ask and it will be given to you! Our God is an awesome God!

 

[WileECoyote]

Boot to DOS and type fdisk /mbr . This should reset your master boot record. As always don't forget to back-up your system before you try this.

Jason

 

[horqua]

I love Win2k! It is unbelievably robust.

Wile, before I could apply your advice (thank you very much) I booted my system and it came right up! Everything worked fine. I didn't take time last night to see if the HD is repaired. I'll check on that tonight.

By the way, just so I understand, if I boot to DOS using a Win98 boot disk, I still can't run CHKDSK /f on my HD because its formatted NTFS. Is this correct? As I understand, DOS won't see the HD without a third party app which allows DOS to see NTFS.

Thanks for your assistance!

Knock and the door will be opened to you; Seek and you will find; Ask and it will be given to you! Our God is an awesome God!

 

[WileECoyote]

You are correct. You can obtain a utility called ReadNTFS from

http://www.mybootdisks.com/downloads.asp

. Also once you run the fdisk /mbr you should be able to boot freely into W2K.

Wile