On my cd bag I've always 2 CDs that I use for system recovery: Knoppix and Bart PE Builder. I usually use them when I've a machine that can't reboot and I need to save data. Today they save my life again... 
One of my desktop pc was in trouble, a partition was corrupted and NTFS.sys was damaged. Windows Recovery Console was unable to save my problem so I was worried... and now?
I tryed with Bart PE Builder cd... a boot from the cd, start the PE Environment, run the Check Disk utility from it.. the tool was able to check the bad sector on the disk and correct them. The new reboot of my machine was a success and now I've my system up and running again.
Recommended... burn a cd with this tool and keep it with you, you'll save a lot of time when you're in trouble.