Unmountable Boot Volume.

newboy_3

Hi, can anyone help me with this....

My sister-in-law's computer, comes up with the following error message (blue screen), when she turns on her pc;

Unmountable Boot Volume.

She has windows xp home.

Any thoughts / ideas??

Newboy

Chippy_Minton

See http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q297/1/85.asp and http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q315/4/03.asp

The solution is to configure the computer's BIOS so that the CD-ROM is the first boot device, insert the Windows XP CD and boot off that. Then enter the Recovery Console and type chkdsk /r. Once complete, change the BIOS back.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/winxp/howto3/unmountable.htm is a more friendly guide.

flang

newboy wrote:

Hi, can anyone help me with this....

My sister-in-law's computer, comes up with the following error message (blue screen), when she turns on her pc;

Unmountable Boot Volume.

She has windows xp home.

Any thoughts / ideas??

Newboy

I had this with my machine, everytime i booted the machine up i had to rewrite the MBR volumn on the disk.
Mine wouldnt work so i just replaced the disk.
Is your harddisk SATA?

flang

Forgot to mention if chkdsk/r doesnt work try fixboot and fixmbr

Browntoa

this worked for me with eaxactly the same message:

run the Recovery Console from CD boot with the Windows XP CD ,and select "R" at the Welcome Screen

The screen will switch to black and you will be asked which installation to log on to. If you only have one installation you will press "1". Remember that numlock is off at this time.

Next you'll be prompted to enter your Admin password. By default it is created blank so just press Enter.


If XP won't start it may be due to a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files.
To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console (as above). At the Command Prompt type the following (where "X" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files

COPY X:\i386\NTLDR C:
COPY X:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

To repair a damaged Boot Sector at the command prompt type FIXBOOT and press Enter. Then answer "Y"

copied in part from

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

newboy_3

Hi All!!

Thanks for all your help on this.

I had to re - format in the end, using the recovery disk. I wanted to do it the ways suggested, however, when my sis-in-law bought the pc from the highstreet store, all the programs were pre-installed. Therefore, I did not have an xp disk. Well, that is what I am summising, as she said this was the only disk she has. (she is pretty good at keeping 'stuff').
If I am wrong, and I could have done it a different way, please let me know for next time.

Thanks again.

Newboy

Rubyru_3

Chippy_Minton wrote:

See http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q297/1/85.asp and http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q315/4/03.asp

The solution is to configure the computer's BIOS so that the CD-ROM is the first boot device, insert the Windows XP CD and boot off that. Then enter the Recovery Console and type chkdsk /r. Once complete, change the BIOS back.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/winxp/howto3/unmountable.htm is a more friendly guide.

Thanks this worked a treat.DH can reclaim his laptop now