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The file or directory C:\$Secure is corrupt and unreadable Error

Had a client who got this error on a Windows XP PRO PC. It would give this error and also would not create a pagefile properly. I searched on the Internet and found that most people concluded that you had to backup all your data and format again. Its related on a faulty NTFS MFT. Well before I do anything on a drive with errors like this I “ghost” the drive using Norton Ghost. This way I have the backup if I need it and if the drive is failing it will indicate this during the ghost and copy all the good data. After this I did the full chkdsk on the original drive but still got the error. I decided to boot with the ghosted drive to see if it ghosted properly and the error stopped and the swapfile was created properly. So if you do get this error try ghosting it either with Norton Ghost (This is the only product from Symantec that I use and I love it!) or you could try some of the free ones or trial ones. I know Norton works and have used it 100’s of times and trust it. Oh and I ghosted the drive back to the original drive and it works fine.

Now others have encountered it and it was caused by installing IE7 with Norton. Check out this forum if this could be the cause of your issue.

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