Accessing NTFS files from DOS?

[Paul Victorey]

OK, I just fixed a problem that was driving me half mad -- a program I installed would totally kill XP to the point even the "three finger salute" couldn't invoke any response. This would happen about 30 seconds after the startup screen, no matter what. Now, my plan was to try to get onto the disk in DOS, rename the directory which contained the files, and in doing so, prevent the program from being able to load at startup.

Unfortunately, the recovery console won't let you alter any files in non-system directories. There's no way to edit the registry in the console, so it's impossible to simply remove the registry keys causing the program to load. The only programs I know of to use NTFS disks in DOS for read/write all cost money.

I eventually solved the problem by fast fingers, I managed to quickly open up and rename the folder before the computer locked up, and then on reboot all was good as it simply failed to find the program. Had it not been for a 30 second window, I would never have been able to fix it with the tools I had.

So, how IS one supposed to solve a problem like this? Assume I had a program that was installed into a folder, say, C:\PRGRM, and it is set to automatically run and it freezes the system. It delays the freeze just long enough such that the system thinks the boot was a success and updates the "last known good" configuration. How do you solve it without a reinstall?

[KHT]

just a thought but why not remove the drive and install it into an external USB drive kit (i use ADS, works great) hooked to another XP or W2k machine and edit/delete the program causing the problem from there?

using the external set up would eliminate any boot conflicts that would arise if you tried to slave it to the good system but still allow you to explore the problem drive after boot up.

[Paul Victorey]

Yeah, but that's considerably more involved than booting to some kind of console and doing the repair there.

[lil Jimmie]

What about Safe Mode with command prompt?

[RenegadeKing]

Safe mode without command prompt would work too.

[Hpro]

Paul you can boot without any problem to any Directory of XP and rename or delete files - The only folder where usually it makes problems is - PRORGRAM FILES - from within Recovery console -but even this directory you can enter if you need too - Please note when in Recovery mode Program files have special Read only Attributes set - need to disable first.

Secondly you also as well can STOP the program from loading if you know the name of either the executable or Dll to load - the command line is something like this below - to find out what is loaded or will load you use this command :
LISTSRV enter and then to you will see what kind of programs are loaded and how those ones are started - there are 5 possibilities - Boot, System , Manual , Automatic, Disabled - the way to either change or disable the Automatic loading is

Enable -filename - boot
Disable - filename - boot -
It's been a long time since I had to use this - but a HELP Enable or Help Disable will tell you the exact commandline.
Hope this could help the one or other to get started in the recovery console..
Hpro

[David_Jones]

Not sure if this will work, but under older Windows systems you could hold down the LEFT shift key as Windows desktop / program, manager came up , and that would stop any 'startup' programs from running.

I used to use it when colleagues had everything opening up automatically (email, spreadsheet, word processor, ..... ).

HTH,

David.

[edge345]

The file you need is located at http://www.ntfs.com
NTFS READER FOR DOS


Sooner or later, everybody has problems with Windows operation systems.