Has My Sisters Pc Packed In?

Uffy64

My sisters pc seems to have crashed. theres a blue screen saying
"unmountable boot volume", and says to use F8, use safe mode and start from there.

Well we tried this a couple of times but still can't access the main windows screen to press start or run or open any programs.

Is this terminal and if it is how do we save the stuff on the hard drive?!

Any help appreciated.

espresso

Try the following:

1. Insert the XP installation disk into an optical drive and boot up the computer.
2. When you see a welcome screen, hit the R key on your keyboard. This will enter you into recovery mode with a DOS prompt.
3. Now type chkdsk /p and hit Enter. This will launch a utility which will check for errors on your hard drive.
4. After the process is done, type fixboot and hit Enter to repair any damaged boot files which may have become corrupted. When asked to say yes or no, type the Y key on your keyboard.
5. Type exit and press the Enter key to reboot your computer.

aliEnRIK

If you cant boot into it in safe mode your pretty much snookered. (Unless you can use your operating disc to do a system repair ~ which 'might' work)

The hard drive could be removed and using a widget, can be plugged into another computers USB port to read the contents you require

Uffy64

Thanks for the replies. We'll try the disc first. Whats a widget? How does that work? Lots of nieces college work on there....hope its not lost.

aliEnRIK

Sorry ~ widget was my NONE technical term

Something like this ~
http://www.b2cshop24.com/en/usb-20-to-ide-sata-adapter-cable.html?language=en&currency=GBP
(Im not saying buy THAT one, simply thats what im talking about)
You would remove the hard drive, plug it into the 'widget'. Plug that into another computers USB port and read the drive through that

asininity

You could try booting a LiveCD of Ubuntu which if its not hardware related will be able to used the harddrive and you can copy your stuff. If it works and you can see your stuff its an XP fault and the computer hardware is fine.

Uffy64

Well tried the disc reinstall, but never got welcome screen just the screen of death!

Where would we get LiveCD of Ubuntu?

asininity

HERE

Download the iso and burn it to cd with imgburn on a slow speed, set the laptop up to boot from CD and boot the computer. Follow the on screen options.

gaming_guy

if you feel confident enough, look inside the computer and check that the Power & IDE (or SATA) cables are plugged in properly.

i had the unmountable boot error once and it was caused by not plugging the IDE cable in correctly.

espresso

UFFY64 wrote: »

Well tried the disc reinstall, but never got welcome screen just the screen of death!

Did you actually type the above commands into the Recovery Console (Black window)?