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How to recover the lost data after File System conversion from FAT to NTFS? by Robin Watson

The Windows users always look forward to enhance the performance and to optimize the utilization of system resources. To enhance the system performance, FAT (File Allocation Table) file system users convert their hard drive file system to NTFS(New Technology File System) even at the cost of some disk space since FAT uses more disk space than NTFS. NTFS offers better performance, encryption, disk space utilization, security and data transfer speed. Microsoft provides a tool (convert.exe) to convert a hard drive or partition file system from FAT to NTFS. A user should always backup the data in advance as data loss might occur post FAT to NTFS conversion. To completely recover the lost data in such cases when there is no updated backup, the user needs an efficient Hard Drive Recovery Software.

As a common instance, a user with Windows XP executes the following command to convert the hard drive file system from FAT 32 to NTFS: convert drive: /fs:ntfs After Windows XP completes the conversion, when the user restarts the computer, he encounters the following error message: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys" The cause for the above error message is corruption of ntfs.sys file while converting the file system from FAT32 to NTFS. After the above error message appears, the data saved in the hard drive becomes inaccessible. To resolve the above error, the user needs to replace the corrupted NTFS.sys file by using these steps:

1.) The user needs to use the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD to restart the computer system.

2.) When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears on the screen, the user needs to press R to select the Recovery Console option.

3.) The user then needs to enter the administrator password, and then press ENTER. If no administrator password exists, the user can just press ENTER. ATTENTION: In case of a multiboot system, the user should also select the Windows installation by entering the appropriate number from the Windows installation directories order shown on screen.

4.) At the command prompt, the user needs to type these commands: cd \windows\system32\drivers

ren ntfs.sys ntfs.old 5.) At the command prompt, the user needs to type the below command, and then press ENTER: copy CD:\i386\ntfs.sys Drive:\windows\system32\drivers CD here signifies the drive letter for the CD-ROM that contains the Windows XP disk. Drive here signifies the drive letter where Windows is installed.

6.) Next, the user needs to remove the Windows XP disk from the CD-ROM drive, type quit at the command prompt and press ENTER to quit the Recovery Console.

If the user again encounters the same error message, then he should opt for a clean operating system reinstall. Formatting a hard drive causes loss of data from the hard drive. In that situation, the user needs to use an effective Hard Drive Recovery Software to recover the lost data.

Stellar Information Systems Limited, the globally leading data recovery company provides Stellar Phoenix Hard Drive Recovery Software. It recovers and restores the lost documents, music, pictures and numerous application files by incorporating influential scanning algorithms. It is a read only application to provides safe recovery without changing your valuable data files. It supports FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. This File Recovery application is compatible with Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000.

This File Recovery utility natively supports more than 300 file types. A user can further enhance this by adding hexadecimal and decimal header information of the lost file types. By using this feature, a user can recover each and every lost file by providing the appropriate header information. It can save large costs, resources and time to operate various Data Recovery applications

This Hard Drive Recovery Software has been designed with largely graphical and self descriptive user interface, which makes this software user friendly. The demo version of this Data Recovery Software is available on Stellar's website and various popular shareware websites. Any user who is looking for File Recovery can assess the software by previewing all files the software can recover. A user can also save this search information for future use.