Another two quite common causes for this error which are not discussed in
the article are incorrect compressed flags and a corrupt NTFS/FAT32
structure.
To solve each of these problems boot into the recovery console by way of the
Windows XP cd. In case of the first problem you need to check if the
compressed attribute is set on the system files in the root directory.
Simply browse to the root directory and get a directory listing with dir to
see whether they are set. If they are you should simply be able to remove
the compressed flags with the attrib command. Note that you can only do this
from the recovery console and not from a normal command prompt. In case of
the second problem you will most likely find that dir returns either an
empty root, or gives you an error message that the drive is corrupt. Simply
run chkdsk c: to try and repair the disk structure, do note that this
process can take a very long time... after it's finished simply reboot and
see if the problem is solved. Do backup your data asap though, the problem
that has causes this error might very well introduce some new ones. Try
checking that your hardware is ok by running diagnostics programs such as
memtest from
www.memtest86.com to test your memory and download a disk
diagnostics utility from your harddrive manufacturer's website to check that
your disks are ok.
Regards, Wichetael.
