I just fixed a Dell Inspiron with the same problem without reinstalling or losing any data.

I booted to the Dell CD (put CD in, power on and hold down f12 to get the option).

Went to the recovery console and ran chkdsk c: /r (this took about an hour on a 30gb disk).

Then I followed the directions from this site:
http://digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_ma..._boot_toot.htm

One of my files had to have a .bak extension added to work but you can use cd and dir from the recovery console to verify the location and names of your files.

As always Your Mileage May Vary.

I would like to know if NTFS was being used by anyone who is having this problem.

Thanks and I hope it helps.

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No blue in the correct addy.