STOP 0xA in Ntfs.sys During Reboot

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0

SYMPTOMS

You receive a STOP 0x0000000A in Ntfs.sys during a reboot after disk corruption or after the system has been shut down in a "dirty" state.

CAUSE

The STOP occurs while NTFS is attempting to mount a partition whose boot sector or MFT has become corrupted. One possible cause of corruption that can bring on this problem is a "dirty" shutdown, which is when the computer is turned off or reset without the system's being shut down first. However, other types of corruption can cause this problem. Not all drive corruption will cause this problem. In many cases the corruption will simply prevent the drive from being mounted, without causing a STOP during boot.

There is no easy way, short of a live debug of the crashed server, to determine conclusively if you have encountered this problem. However, one simple test is to do a parallel install of Windows NT on the system. If you have encountered this problem, the parallel install should show the same stop 0xA in Ntfs.sys.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, perform the following steps:

1. Identify the partition that is corrupted.

   partition.

MORE INFORMATION

If the corrupted partition is your system or boot partition, you will most likely need to reformat the partition, reinstall Windows NT, and restore the partition information from a backup, as there will be no way to boot after disabling the partition.

There are two methods you can use to identify the corrupted partition and prevent it from being mounted (as required by steps 1 and 2 above). Which method you use depends upon whether or not the partition is on the same drive as your system/boot partition. The two methods are:

1. Remove or disable drives one at a time until the system boots. This method will not work for the drive containing your system or boot partition, but if the corrupted partition is on another drive in the system, removing them one at a time and attempting to boot the system will identify which drive the partition is on, as once it is removed, Windows NT should boot successfully. Once you have successfully booted Windows NT you can apply the fix, shut down the system, re-install or re-enable the drive, and reboot.

2. Use a disk editor to disable the partitions one at a time. If the corrupted partition is on the same drive as your system or boot partition, you will need to boot to an alternative operating system (either MS-DOS or Windows 95 will work) and use a disk editor such as Norton Disk Edit to disable the partition. Once the partition is disabled, Windows NT should boot successfully. Then you can apply the fix, reboot and use a partition editor to re-enable the partition, and then restart Windows NT. Disabling the partition is accomplished by changing the system indicator byte to an unsupported file system type not recognized by Windows NT.

To replace the Ntfs.sys file using the repair process, follow the instructions in the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q150497
   TITLE     : How to Repair Windows NT System Files Without a CD-ROM
               Attached

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT versions 3.51 and 4.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

   S E R V P A C K