Emergency Repair Disk May Not Repair All Windows NT Files

Last reviewed: May 12, 1997
Article ID: Q105244

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

The Windows NT Emergency Repair disk may not be able to repair some of the Windows NT system files if additional drivers or third-party system files are added after installation.

The Emergency Repair disk uses a file called REPAIR.INF to store information about an installation. The names, location, and checksum of each Windows NT file copied to the system during installation are stored within this file. This data is used in the event of a repair to verify the integrity of each Windows NT file. If a discrepancy is encountered, the file is copied from the original disks or CD-ROM.

If an additional driver or software is loaded after the initial installation of Windows NT, the Emergency Repair disk will be unable to verify these files. Troubleshooting and replacement of such files must be done manually, rather than with the Emergency Repair disk.

For example, if you add a third-party display driver or printer driver after installation, the Emergency Repair disk will not have information on these files and will not be able to verify them.

Files that may be affected by this include drivers for audio adapters, printer drivers, display drivers, network adapter drivers, and any other software that requires new files to be copied to the system after the initial installation.


Additional query words: prodnt corrupt
Keywords : kbsetup ntdriver ntsetup
Version : 3.1
Platform : WINDOWS


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Last reviewed: May 12, 1997
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