NTFS not being read properly.

When I boot the computer it reads the hard drive enough to start booting windows but then gets a blue screen. when I boot off of the cd it says it doesn't regognize if the drive is ntfs or fat, it just says unknown and doesn't give me the option to repair the existing windows install. I already tried fixmbr that didn't work. The weird thing is, when I boot off of bart pe I can read the data on the drive just fine. Is there anything that can fix this without formatting or am I just going to have to format?

Will it boot up in Safe Mode?

Boot up with the WinXP CD in the drive, and go to the Recovery Console. At the command prompt, type "chkdsk /R", then type "Fixmbr", then "fixboot", all without the quotes.

Nope, safe mode doesn't work.

Ok, I guess I will try the recovery console.

Stranger still, I booted off the cd again and now it reads the drive as NTFS but still doesn't regognize that there is a windows install on the system to repair, I'm going to install windows in a different directory.

Hi!

Definitely don't just reinstall Windows in a different folder on that abnormally-behaving partition! Please do what SuperSparks has said as a first step as it may completely fix your problem. No matter what I ended up having to do, I'd never install into a differently-named folder on a partition that already has a Windows install on - faulty or otherwise; it's just asking for problems. In your case especially you have a partition doing weird things - you need to sort that out before you even think about reinstalling anything anywhere!

Best wishes,

Andrew