Missing NT file

September 14, 2006 8:15 AM

Where could I locate the missing NT file ati.sys?

The boot drive on my NT box went down and I don't have the time for a reinstall, so I ripped the boot drive out of another NT box and it's back up, but in jumbo display mode - says I need the file ati.sys on the install disc for the display, but I've searched my only NT disc and it's not on there.

Is there any repository online, or anywhere else, where I might find such a file?

posted by forallmankind to computers & internet (8 comments total)

It sounds like it's the driver for your video card. The ATI site has drivers.
posted by box at 8:21 AM on September 14, 2006

yeah, it is - no luck on the ATI site though....
posted by forallmankind at 10:04 AM on September 14, 2006

find out what video card you have. Then, search ATI's site for the dirver files for that card. It will likely be a self installing executable. ATI.sys will be part of what it installs. You won't be able to install just ATI.sys. There will be other files necessary to make it work.

To find out what video card you have, watch the screen closely at boot up. Often a brief message with flash across the screen noting the brand and model of the video card.
posted by cosmicbandito at 10:19 AM on September 14, 2006

cosmicbandito - there's no separate video card: it's the VGA output from the motherboard.
posted by forallmankind at 10:42 AM on September 14, 2006

then it's a built in VGA chipset on the mother board. who's the motherboard manufacturer? Do you have the CDs that came with the mobo? Ifnot, same thing, find out the brand and modelf of Mobo, go to their website and search for drivers. There's porbably a self extracting exe with all the juicy bits in it.
posted by cosmicbandito at 10:56 AM on September 14, 2006

The ATI drivers from their site would be best, but ati.sys is the default included OEM file in Windows. You should be able to re-add it by installing the ATI card using driver install in display properties. Alternately, you can extract it from the drivers.cab (which SFC should have done automatically when the file went missing); that's why you're in jumbo mode (by which I assume you mean 640x480), you're in default display mode.

If you're on XP, you can find it and manually copy it from c:\windows\driver cache\i386\drivers.cab. If by NT you mean NT4 (whoo, old skool!)... I think you can extract it from the \i386\drivers\ directory on the install media, where it'd be named ati.sy_
posted by hincandenza at 11:14 AM on September 14, 2006

hincandenza - thanks. I located the file, but needless to say I'm now missing a ton of others. Crying seems like a good answer now....
posted by forallmankind at 2:22 PM on September 14, 2006

Do a repair of the system, then, and/or reapply the last service pack you installed.
posted by hincandenza at 2:57 PM on September 14, 2006